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GREEK  GENIUS 
AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


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NEW  YORK 


GREEK  GENIUS 

AND   OTHER   ESSAYS 


BY 

JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,   YARD  &  COMPANY 
1915 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 


LOAN  STACK 


CONTENTS 

I  EURIPIDES  AND  THE  GREEK 

GENIUS i 

1  Introduction 3 

2  False  Guides 7 

3  The  Alccstis 

4  The  Bacchantes    ....  4£ 

5  The   Greek   Chorus — Horror 
and  Irony 73 

6  Gilbert  Murray — Oxford       .  97 

7  Conclusion 125 

II  SHAKESPEARE 133 

1  The  Greek  Stage  and  Shake 
speare  135 

2  Shakespeare's  Vehicle      .      .141 

3  Each  Play  a  World    .      .      .157 

4  Troilus  and  Crcssida        .      .173 

5  The  Melancholy  Plays     .      .191 

6  Shakespeare's  Influence  .      .    207 
III  BALZAC 219 


CONTENTS 

IV  LA  VIE  PARISIENNE     .      .      .      .  291 

1  The  Women  .      .      .      .      .   293 

2  Wicked,  Lovely  Paris       .      .   300 

3  The  Damned 303 

4  Abbes   and   Cups   of   Choco 
late       .      .      .      .      .      .      .   306 

5  The  Creative  Work  of  Aliens  309 

6  The  Poor  Indian  .      .      .      .314 


EURIPIDES  AND  THE 
GREEK  GENIUS 


INTRODUCTION 

TIIK  teasing  perfection  of  Greek  Liter 
ature  will  perhaps  excite  the  world 
long  after  modern  literature  is  forgotten. 
Shakespeare  may  come  to  his  end  and  lie 
down  among  the  Egyptians,  but  Homer  will 
endure  forever.  We  hate  to  imagine  such 
an  outcome,  because,  while  we  love  Shake 
speare,  we  regard  the  Greek  classics  merely 
with  an  overwhelmed  astonishment.  Hut 
the  fact  is  that  Homer  floats  in  the  central 
stream  of  History,  Shakespeare  in  an  eddy. 
There  is,  too,  a  real  difference  between  an 
cient  and  modern  art,  and  the  enduring 
power  may  be  on  the  side  of  antiquity. 

The  classics  will  always  be  the  playthings 
of  humanity,  because  they  are  types  of  per 
fection,  like  crystals.  They  are  pure  intel 
lect,  like  demonstrations  in  geometry. 
Within  their  own  limitations  they  are  exam 
ples  of  miracle;  and  the  modern  world  has 
nothing  to  show  that  resembles  them  in  the 
least.  As  no  builder  has  built  like  the 

C3] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Greeks,  so  no  writer  has  written  like  the 
Greeks.  In  edge,  in  delicacy,  in  proportion, 
in  accuracy  of  effect,  they  are  as  marble  to 
our  sandstone.  The  perfection  of  the  Greek 
vehicle  is  what  attacks  the  mind  of  the  mod 
ern  man  and  gives  him  dreams. 

What  relation  these  dreams  bear  to  Greek 
feeling  it  is  impossible  to  say, — probably  a 
very  remote  and  grotesque  relation.  The 
scholars  who  devote  their  enormous  ener 
gies  in  a  life-and-death  struggle  to  under 
stand  the  Greeks  always  arrive  at  states  of 
mind  which  are  peculiarly  modern.  The  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  the  severest  types  of 
Biblical  scholar.  David  Friedrich  Strauss,  for 
instance,  gave  his  life  to  the  study  of  Christ, 
and,  as  a  result,  has  left  an  admirable  picture 
of  the  German  mind  of  1850.  Goethe,  who 
was  on  his  guard  if  ever  a  man  could  be,  has 
still  been  a  little  deceived  in  thinking  that 
the  classic  spirit  could  be  recovered.  He  has 
left  imitations  of  Greek  literature  which  are 
admirable  in  themselves,  and  rank  among 
his  most  characteristic  works,  yet  which 
bear  small  resemblance  to  the  originals.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  Milton  and  of  Racine. 
The  Greeks  seem  to  have  used  their  material, 
their  myths  and  ideas,  with  such  supernal 
intellect  that  they  leave  this  material  un- 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

touched  for  the  next  comer.  Their  gods 
persist,  their  mythology  is  yours  and  mine. 
We  accept  the  toys, — the  whole  babyhouse 
which  has  come  down  to  us :  we  walk  in  and 
build  our  own  dramas  with  their  blocks. 

What  a  man  thinks  of  influences  him, 
though  he  chance  to  know  little  about  it ;  and 
the  power  which  the  ancient  world  has 
exerted  over  the  modern  has  not  been  shown 
in  proportion  to  the  knowledge  or  scholar 
ship  of  the  modern  thinker,  but  in  propor 
tion  to  his  natural  force.  The  Greek 
tradition,  the  Greek  idea  became  an  element 
in  all  subsequent  life;  and  one  can  no  more 
dig  it  out  and  isolate  it  than  one  can  dig  out 
or  isolate  a  property  of  the  blood.  We  do 
not  know  exactly  how  much  we  owe  to  the 
Greeks.  Keats  was  inspired  by  the  very  idea 
of  them.  They  were  an  obsession  to  Dante, 
who  knew  not  the  language.  Their  achieve 
ments  have  been  pressing  in  upon  the  mind 
of  Europe,  and  enveloping  it  with  an  atmo 
spheric  appeal,  ever  since  the  Dark  Ages. 

Of  late  years  we  have  come  to  think  of  all 
subjects  as  mere  departments  of  science,  and 
we  are  almost  ready  to  hand  over  Greece  to 
the  specialist.  We  assume  that  scholars  will 
work  out  the  history  of  art.  But  it  is  not  the 
right  of  the  learned  and  scholarly  only,  to  be 


GREEK  GENIUS 

influenced  by  the  Greeks,  but  also  of  those 
persons  who  know  no  Greek.  Greek  influ 
ence  is  too  universal  an  inheritance  to  be 
entrusted  to  scholars,  and  the  specialist  is  the 
very  last  man  who  can  understand  it.  In 
order  to  obtain  a  diagnosis  on  Greek  influ 
ence  one  would  have  to  seek  out  a  sort  of 
specialist  on  Humanity-at-large. 


II 

FALSE  GUIDES 

SINCE  we  cannot  find  any  inspired 
teacher  to  lay  before  us  the  secrets  of 
Greek  influence,  the  next  best  thing  would 
be  to  go  directly  to  the  Greeks  themselves, 
and  to  study  their  works  freshly,  almost  in 
nocently.  But  to  do  this  is  not  easy.  The 
very  Greek  texts  themselves  have  been  estab 
lished  through  modern  research,  and  the 
foot-notes  are  the  essence  of  modernity. 

The  rushing  modern  world  passes  like  an 
express  train ;  as  it  goes,  it  holds  up  a  mirror 
to  the  classic  world, — a  mirror  ever  chang 
ing  and  ever  false.  For  upon  the  face  of  the 
mirror  rests  the  lens  of  fleeting  fashion.  We 
can  no  more  walk  straight  to  the  Greeks  than 
we  can  walk  straight  to  the  moon.  In 
America  the  natural  road  to  the  classics  lies 
through  the  introductions  of  German  and 
English  scholarship.  We  are  met,  as  it 
were,  on  the  threshold  of  Greece  by  guides 
who  address  us  confidently  in  two  very  dis- 

r.73 


GREEK  GENIUS 

similar  modern  idioms,  and  who  overwhelm 
us  with  complacent  and  voluble  instructions. 
According  to  these  men  we  have  nothing  to 
do  but  listen  to  them,  if  we  would  under 
stand  Greece. 

Before  entering  upon  the  subject  of 
Greece,  let  us  cast  a  preliminary  and  disil 
lusioning  glance  upon  our  two  guides,  the 
German  and  the  Briton.  Let  us  look  once  at 
each  of  them  with  an  intelligent  curiosity,  so 
that  we  may  understand  what  manner  of 
men  they  are,  and  can  make  allowances  in 
receiving  the  valuable  and  voluble  assistance 
which  they  keep  whispering  into  our  ears 
throughout  the  tour.  The  guides  are  indis 
pensable  ;  but  this  need  not  prevent  us  from 
studying  their  temperaments.  If  it  be  true 
that  modern  scholarship  acts  as  a  lens 
through  which  the  classics  are  to  be  viewed, 
we  can  never  hope  to  get  rid  of  all  the  distor 
tions;  but  we  may  make  scientific  allow 
ances,  and  may  correct  results.  We  may 
consider  certain  social  laws  of  refraction; 
for  example,  spectacles,  beer,  sausages.  We 
may  regard  the  variations  of  the  compass 
due  to  certain  local  customs,  namely:  the 
Anglican  communion,  School  honour,  Pears' 
soap.  In  all  this  we  sin  not,  but  pursue  in 
tellectual  methods. 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

The  case  of  Germany  illustrates  the  laws 
of  refraction  very  pleasantly.  The  extraor 
dinary  lenses  which  were  made  there  in  the 
nineteenth  century  are  famous  now,  and  will 
remain  as  curiosities  hereafter.  During  the 
last  century,  Learning  won  the  day  in  Ger 
many  to  an  extent  never  before  known  in 
history.  It  became  an  unwritten  law  of  the 
land  that  none  but  learned  men  should  be 
allowed  to  play  with  pebbles.  If  a  man  had 
been  through  the  mill  of  the  Doctorate, 
however,  he  received  a  certificate  as  a 
dreamer.  The  passion  which  mankind  has 
for  using  its  imagination  could  thus  be  grati 
fied  only  by  men  who  had  been  brilliant 
scholars.  The  result  was  a  race  of  monsters, 
of  whom  Nietzsche  is  the  greatest. 

The  early  social  life  of  these  men  was 
contracted.  They  learned  all  they  knew 
while  sitting  on  a  bench.  The  classroom  was 
their  road  to  glory.  They  were  aware  that 
they  could  not  be  allowed  to  go  out  and  play 
in  the  open  until  they  had  learned  their  les 
sons  thoroughly ;  they  therefore  became  prize 
boys.  When  the  great  freedom  was  at  last 
conferred  upon  them,  they  roamed  through 
Greek  mythology,  and  all  other  mythologies, 
and  erected  labyrinths  in  which  the  passions 
of  childhood  may  be  seen  gambolling  with 

C9] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

the  discoveries  of  adult  miseducation.  The 
gravity  with  which  the  pundits  treated  each 
other  extended  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  be 
cause,  in  the  first  place,  they  were  more 
learned  than  any  one  else,  and  in  the  second, 
several  of  them  were  men  of  genius.  The 
"finds"  of  modern  archaeology  have  passed 
through  the  hands  of  these  men,  and  have 
received  from  them  the  labels  of  current 
classification. 

After  all,  these  pundits  resemble  their 
predecessors  in  learning.  Scholarship  is  al 
ways  a  specialised  matter,  and  it  must  be 
learned  as  we  learn  a  game.  Scholarship 
always  wears  the  parade  of  finality,  and  yet 
suffers  changes  like  the  moon.  These  par 
ticular  scholars  are  merely  scholars.  Their 
errors  are  only  the  errors  of  scholarship, 
due,  for  the  most  part,  to  extravagance  and 
to  ambition.  A  new  idea  about  Hellas 
meant  a  new  reputation.  In  default  of  such 
an  idea  a  man's  career  is  manquee;  he  is  not 
an  intellectual.  After  discounting  ambition, 
we  have  left  still  another  cause  for  distrust 
ing  the  labours  of  the  German  professors. 
This  distrust  arises  from  a  peep  into  the 
social  surroundings  of  the  caste.  Here  is  a 
great  authority  on  the  open-air  life  of  the 
Greeks:  he  knows  all  about  Hellenic  sport. 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

Here  is  another  who  understands  the  bril 
liant  social  life  of  Attica :  he  has  written  the 
best  book  upon  Athenian  conversation  and 
the  market-place.  Here  is  still  a  third:  he 
has  reconstructed  Greek  religion :  at  last  we 
know !  All  these  miracles  of  learning  have 
been  accomplished  in  the  library,— without 
athletics,  without  conversation,  without  re 
ligion. 

When  I  think  of  Greek  civilisation,  of  the 
swarming,  thieving,  clever,  gleaming-eyed 
Greeks,  of  the  Bay  of  Salamis,  and  of  the 
Hermes  of  Praxiteles,— and  then  cast  my 
eyes  on  the  Greatest  Authority,  my  guide, 
my  Teuton  master,  with  his  barbarian  babble 
and  his  ham-bone  and  his  self-importance, 
I  begin  to  wonder  whether  I  cannot  some 
how  get  rid  of  the  man  and  leave  him  be 
hind.  Alas,  we  cannot  do  that ;  we  can  only 
remember  his  traits. 

Our  British  mentors,  who  flank  the  Ger 
man  scholars  as  we  move  gently  forward 
toward  Greek  feeling,  form  so  complete  a 
contrast  to  the  Teutons  that  we  hardly  be 
lieve  that  both  kinds  can  represent  genuine 
scholarship.  The  Britons  are  gentlemen, 
afternoon  callers,  who  eat  small  cakes,  row 
on  the  Thames,  and  are  all  for  morality. 
They  are  men  of  letters.  They  write  in 


GREEK  GENIUS 

prose  and  in  verse,  and  belong  to  the  aes 
thetic  fraternity.  They,  like  the  Teutons, 
are  attached  to  institutions  of  learning, 
namely,  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  They 
resemble  the  Germans,  however,  in  but  a 
single  trait, — the  conviction  that  they  under 
stand  Greece. 

The  thesis  of  the  British  belle-lettrists,  to 
which  they  devote  their  energies,  might  be 
stated  thus:  British  culture  includes  Greek 
culture.  They  are  very  modern,  very  Eng 
lish,  very  sentimental,  these  British  scholars. 
While  the  German  doctors  use  Greek  as 
a  stalking-horse  for  Teutonic  psychology, 
these  English  gentlemen  use  it  as  a  dress 
maker's  model  upon  which  they  exhibit 
home-made  English  lyrics  and  British  stock 
morality.  The  lesson  which  Browning  sees 
in  Alcestis  is  the  same  that  he  gave  us  in 
James  Lee's  Wife.  Browning's  appeal  is 
always  the  appeal  to  robust  feeling  as  the 
salvation  of  the  world.  Gilbert  Murray,  on 
the  other  hand,  sheds  a  sad,  clinging,  Tenny- 
sonian  morality  over  Dionysus.  Jowett  is 
happy  to  announce  that  Plato  is  theologically 
sound,  and  gives  him  a  ticket-of -leave  to 
walk  anywhere  in  England.  Swinburne 
clings  to  that  belief  in  sentiment  which 
marks  the  Victorian  era,  but  Swinburne 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

finds  the  key  to  life  in  unrestraint  instead  of 
in  restraint. 

There  is  a  whole  school  of  limp  Grecism 
in  England,  which  has  grown  up  out  of 
Keats'  Grecian  urn,  and  which  is  now  but 
tressed  with  philosophy  and  adorned  with 
scholarship ;  and  no  doubt  it  does  bear  some 
sort  of  relation  to  Greece  and  to  Greek  life. 
But  this  Anglican  Grecism  has  the  quality 
which  all  modern  British  art  exhibits, — the 
very  quality  which  the  Greeks  could  not 
abide,  —  it  is  tinged  with  excess.  The 
Briton  likes  strong  flavours.  He  likes  them 
in  his  tea,  in  his  port  wine,  in  his  concert-hall 
songs,  in  his  pictures  of  home  and  farm  life. 
He  likes  something  unmistakable,  something 
with  a  smack  that  lets  you  know  that  the 
thing  has  arrived.  In  his  literature  he  is  the 
same.  Dickens,  Carlyle,  Tennyson  lay  it  on 
thick  with  sentiment.  Keats  drips  with 
aromatic  poetry,  which  has  a  wonder  and  a 
beauty  of  its  own — and  whose  striking  qual 
ity  is  excess.  The  scented,  wholesale  sweet 
ness  of  the  modern  sesthetic  school  in  Eng 
land  goes  home  to  its  admirers  because  it  is 
easy  art.  Once  enjoy  a  bit  of  it  and  you 
never  forget  it.  It  is  always  the  same,  the 
"old  reliable,"  the  Oxford  brand,  the  true, 
safe,  British,  patriotic,  moral,  noble  school 

C'3] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  verse;  which  exhibits  the  manners  and 
feelings  of  a  gentleman,  and  has  success 
written  in  every  trait  of  its  physiognomy. 

How  this  school  of  poetry  invaded  Greece 
is  part  of  the  history  of  British  expansion  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  In  the  Victorian  era 
the  Englishman  brought  cricket  and  morn 
ing  prayers  into  South  Africa.  Robert 
Browning  established  himself  and  his  carpet 
bag  in  comfortable  lodgings  on  the  Acropo 
lis, — which  he  spells  with  a  k  to  show  his 
intimate  acquaintance  with  recent  research. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  Robert  Browning's 
view  of  Greece  never  pleased,  even  in  Eng 
land.  It  was  too  obviously  R.  B.  over  again. 
It  was  Pippa  and  Bishop  Blougram  with  a 
few  pomegranate  seeds  and  unexpected  or 
thographies  thrown  in.  The  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  is  against  it,  and  suggests,  wittily 
enough,  that  one  can  hardly  agree  with 
Browning  that  Heracles  got  drunk  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  up  other  people's  spirits. 

So  also  Edward  Fitzgerald  was  never 
taken  seriously  by  the  English ;  but  this  was 
for  another  reason.  His  translations  are  the 
best  transcriptions  from  the  Greek  ever  done 
by  this  British  school ;  but  Fitzgerald  never 
took  himself  seriously.  I  believe  that  if  he 
had  only  been  ambitious,  and  had  belonged 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

to  the  academic  classes,— like  Jowett  for  in 
stance,— he  could  have  got  Oxford  behind 
him,  and  we  should  all  have  been  obliged  to 
regard  him  as  a  great  apostle  of  Hellenism. 
But  he  was  a  poor-spirited  sort  of  man,  and 
never  worked  up  his  lead. 

Matthew  Arnold,  on  the  other  hand,  be 
gan  the  serious  profession  of  being  a 
Grecian.  He  took  it  up  when  there  was 
nothing  in  it,  and  he  developed  a  little  sect 
of  his  own,  out  of  which  later  came  Swin 
burne  and  Gilbert  Murray,  each  of  whom  is 
the  true  British  article.  While  Swinburne 
is  by  far  the  greater  poet,  Murray  is  by  far 
the  more  important  of  the  two  from  the 
ethnological  point  of  view.  Murray  was  the 
first  man  to  talk  boldly  about  God,  and  to 
introduce  his  name  into  all  Greek  myths, 
using  it  as  a  fair  translation  of  any  Greek 
thought.  There  is  a  danger  in  this  bold 
ness.  The  reader's  attention  becomes  hyp 
notised  with  wondering  in  what  manner 
God  is  to  be  introduced  into  the  next  verse. 
The  reader  becomes  so  concerned  about  Mr. 
Murray's  religious  obsessions  that  he  forgets 
the  Greek  altogether  and  remembers  only 
Shakespeare's  hostess  in  her  distress  over 
the  dying  Falstaff :  "Now  I,  to  comfort  him, 
bid  him  'a  should  not  think  of  God,  —  I  hoped 


GREEK  GENIUS 

there  was  no  need  to  trouble  himself  with 
any  such  thoughts  yet." 

Murray  and  Arnold  are  twins  in  ethical 
endeavour.  I  think  that  it  was  Arnold  who 
first  told  the  British  that  Greece  was  noted 
for  melancholy  and  for  longings.  He  told 
them  that  chastity,  temperance,  nudity,  and 
a  wealth  of  moral  rhetoric  marked  the 
young  man  of  the  Periclean  period.  Even 
good  old  Dean  Plumptre  has  put  this  young 
man  into  his  prefaces.  Swinburne  added 
the  hymeneal  note, — the  poetic  nature-view, 
—of  which  the  following  may  serve  as  an 
example : — 

"And  the  trees  in  their  season  brought 
forth  and  were  kindled  anew 

By  the  warmth  of  the  mixture  of  mar 
riage,  the  child-bearing  dew." 

There  is  hardly  a  page  in  Swinburne's  Hel- 
lenising  verse  that  does  not  blossom  with 
Hymen.  The  passages  would  be  well  suited 
for  use  in  the  public  schools  of  to-day  where 
sex-knowledge  in  its  poetic  aspects  is  begin 
ning  to  be  judiciously  introduced. 

This  contribution  of  Swinburne's, — the 
hymeneal  touch,— and  Murray's  discovery 
that  the  word  God  could  be  introduced 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

with  effect  anywhere,  went  like  wildfire  over 
England.  They  are  characteristic  of  the 
latest  phase  of  Anglo-Grecism. 

Gilbert  Murray  has,  in  late  years,  had  the 
field  to  himself.  He  stands  as  the  head  and 
front  of  Greek  culture  in  England.  It  is  he, 
more  than  any  one  else,  who  is  the  figure 
head  of  dramatic  poetry  in  England  to-day ; 
and,  as  such,  his  influence  must  be  met,  and, 
as  it  were,  passed  through,  by  the  American 
student  who  is  studying  the  Greek  classics. 
It  is  then  no  accident  that  a  chapter  at  the 
end  of  this  essay  is  devoted  to  Gilbert  Mur 
ray.  In  studying  the  vagaries  of  the  Anglo- 
Grecian  school,  it  is  necessary  to  take  Greek 
itself  as  a  central  objective,  and  then  super 
pose  the  Anglican  transcriptions  on  top  of 
the  original. 


Ill 

THE  ALCESTIS 

IN  this  and  the  following  chapter  two 
plays  of  Euripides,  the  Alcestis  and  the 
Bacchantes,  are  examined  as  dispassionately 
as  may  be  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  some 
insight  into  the  Greek  mind.  The  Alcestis 
is  plain  sailing,  and  no  one  will  quarrel  very 
seriously  as  to  its  nature.  The  Bacchantes, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  the  most  tousled  bit 
of  all  Greek  literature.  It  is  the  happy 
hunting-ground  of  all  religious  interpreta 
tions,  and  no  two  scholars  agree  with  cer 
tainty  about  its  meaning.  Ancient  religion 
is  of  all  subjects  in  the  world  the  most  diffi 
cult.  Every  religion,  even  at  the  time  it  was 
in  progress,  was  always  completely  misun 
derstood,  and  the  misconceptions  have  in 
creased  with  the  ages.  They  multiply  with 
every  monument  that  is  unearthed.  If  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  were  going  at  full 
blast  to-day,  so  that  we  could  attend  them, 
as  we  do  the  play  at  Oberammergau,  their 
interpretation  would  still  present  difficulties. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Mommsen  and  Rhode  would  disagree.  And 
ten  thousand  years  from  now,  when  nothing 
survives  except  a  line  out  of  St.  John's  Gos 
pel  and  a  tablet  stating  that  Meyer  played 
the  part  of  Christ  for  three  successive 
decades,  many  authoritative  books  will  be 
written  about  Oberammergau,  and  reputa 
tions  will  be  made  over  it.  Anything  which 
we  approach  as  religion  becomes  a  nightmare 
of  suggestion,  and  hales  us  hither  and 
thither  with  thoughts  beyond  the  reaches  of 
the  soul. 

The  Alcestis  and  the  Bacchantes  are,  in 
this  paper,  approached  with  the  idea  that 
they  are  plays.  This  seems  not  to  have  been 
done  often  enough  with  Greek  plays.  They 
are  regarded  as  examples  of  the  sublime,  as 
forms  of  philosophic  thought,  as  moral  es 
says,  as  poems,  even  as  illustrations  of  dra 
matic  law,  and  they  are  unquestionably  all  of 
these  things.  But  they  were  primarily  plays, 
— intended  to  pass  the  time  and  exhilarate 
the  emotions.  They  came  into  being  as 
plays,  and  their  form  and  make-up  can  best 
be  understood  by  a  study  of  the  dramatic 
business  in  them.  They  became  poems  and 
philosophy  incidentally,  and  afterwards: 
they  were  born  as  plays.  A  playwright  is 
always  an  entertainer,  and  unless  his  desire 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

to  hold  his  audience  ovcrpoweringly  predom 
inates  he  will  never  be  a  success.  It  is  prob 
able  that  even  with  ^Eschylus — who  stands 
hors  licjnc  as  the  only  playwright  in  history 
who  was  really  in  earnest  about  morality— 
we  should  have  to  confess  that  his  passion 
as  a  dramatic  artist  came  first.  He  held  his 
audiences  by  strokes  of  tremendous  dramatic 
novelty.  Both  the  stage  traditions  and  the 
plays  themselves  bear  this  out.  The  fact  is 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  keep  people  sitting  in  a 
theatre;  and  unless  the  idea  of  holding  their 
attention  predominates  with  the  author,  they 
will  walk  out,  and  he  will  not  be  able  to 
deliver  the  rest  of  his  story. 

In  the  grosser  forms  of  dramatic  amuse 
ment —  for  example,  where  a  bicycle  acrobat 
is  followed  by  a  comic  song — we  are  not  com 
pelled  to  find  any  philosophic  depth  of  idea 
in  the  sequence.  But  in  dealing  with  works 
of  great  and  refined  dramatic  genius  like  the 
Tempest,  or  the  Bacchantes,  where  the  emo 
tions  played  upon  are  subtly  interwoven, 
there  will  always  be  found  certain  minds 
which  remain  unsatisfied  with  the  work  of 
art  itself,  but  must  have  it  explained.  Even 
Beethoven's  sonatas  have  been  supplied 
with  philosophic  addenda, — statements  of 
their  meaning.  We  know  how  much  Shake- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

speare's  intentions  used  to  puzzle  the  Ger 
mans.  Men  feel  that  somewhere  at  the 
back  of  their  own  consciousness  there  is  a 
philosophy  or  a  religion  with  which  the  arts 
have  some  relation.  In  so  far  as  these  af 
finities  are  touched  upon  in  a  manner  that 
leaves  them  mysteries,  we  have  good  criti 
cism;  but  when  people  dogmatise  about 
them,  we  have  bad  criticism.  In  the  mean 
time  the  great  artist  goes  his  way.  His  own 
problems  are  enough  for  him. 

The  early  critics  were  puzzled  to  classify 
the  Alcestis,  and  no  wonder,  for  it  contains 
many  varieties  of  dramatic  writing.  For 
this  very  reason  it  is  a  good  play  to  take  as 
a  sample  of  Greek  spirit  and  Greek  work 
manship.  It  is  a  little  Greek  cosmos,  and  it 
happens  to  depict  a  side  of  Greek  thought 
Avhich  is  sympathetic  to  modern  sentiment, 
so  that  we  seem  to  be  at  home  in  its  atmo 
sphere.  The  Alcestis  is  thought  to  be  in  a 
class  by  itself.  And  yet,  under  close  exami 
nation,  every  Greek  play  falls  into  a  class  by 
itself  (there  are  only  about  forty-five  of  them 
in  all),  and  the  maker  of  each  was  more  con 
cerned  with  the  dramatic  experiment  upon 
which  he  found  himself  launched  than  he 
was  with  any  formal  classification  which 
posterity  might  assign  to  his  play. 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

In  the  Alcestis  Euripides  made  one  of  the 
best  plays  in  the  world,  full  of  true  pathos, 
full  of  jovial  humour,  both  of  which  some 
times  verge  upon  the  burlesque.  The  happy 
ending  is  understood  from  the  start,  and 
none  of  the  grief  is  painful.  Alcestis  herself 
is  the  goodwife  of  Greek  household  myth, 
who  is  ready  to  die  for  her  husband.  To 
this  play  the  bourgeois  takes  his  half-grown 
family.  He  rejoices  when  he  hears  that  it  is 
to  be  given.  The  absurdities  of  the  fairy 
tale  are  accepted  simply.  Heracles  has  his 
club,  Death  his  sword,  Apollo  his  lyre.  The 
women  wail,  Admetus  whines ;  there  is  buf 
foonery,  there  are  tears,  there  is  wit,  there  is 
conventional  wrangling,  and  that  word-chop 
ping  so  dear  to  the  Mediterranean  theatre, 
which  exists  in  all  classic  drama  and  survives 
in  the  Punch  and  Judy  show  of  to-day.  And 
there  is  the  charming  return  of  Heracles 
with  the  veiled  lady  whom  he  presents  to 
Admetus  as  a  slave  for  safe-keeping,  whom 
Admetus  refuses  to  receive  for  conventional 
reasons,  but  whom  every  child  in  the  au 
dience  feels  to  be  the  real  Alcestis,  even 
before  Heracles  unveils  her  and  gives  her 
back  into  her  husband's  bosom  with  speeches 
on  both  sides  that  are  like  the  closing  music 
of  a  dream. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

The  audience  disperses  at  the  close,  feel 
ing  that  it  has  spent  a  happy  hour.  No 
sonata  of  Mozart  is  more  completely  beauti 
ful  than  the  Alcestis.  No  comedy  of  Shake 
speare  approaches  it  in  perfection.  The 
merit  of  the  piece  lies  not  in  any  special  idea 
it  conveys,  but  entirely  in  the  manner  in 
which  everything  is  carried  out. 

At  the  risk  of  fatiguing  the  reader  I  must 
give  a  rapid  summary  of  the  Alcestis,  so  as 
to  show  some  aspects  of  the  play  from  a 
purely  dramatic  point  of  view,  as  well  as  to 
consider  what  the  Greek  theatre  at  large  was 
like. 

At  the  opening  of  the  play  Apollo  appears 
upon  the  steps  of  the  palace  of  Admetus  and 
explains  that  he  is  Apollo  and  that  the  palace 
is  the  palace.  It  appears  that  out  of  regard 
for  Admetus,  in  whose  house  he  had  for 
merly  lived,  Apollo  has  agreed  with  Death 
to  lengthen  Admetus'  life  if  a  substitute  can 
be  found.  The  fatal  day  has  arrived,  but  no 
one  is  willing  to  die  in  place  of  Admetus,  ex 
cept  his  wife,  Alcestis,  who  now  lies,  in  arti- 
culo  mortis,  within  the  palace.  Apollo  is 
about  to  leave,  so  as  to  escape  the  presence 
of  anything  so  defiling  as  a  dead  body,  when 
Death  stalks  upon  the  scene,  and  the  two 
have  a  most  senseless  bout  of  word-whack- 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

ing  and  mutual  defiance,  somewhat  in  the 
style  of  Herod  and  Pilate  in  an  old  market 
place  comedy.  During  this  bout  the  very 
simple  situation  of  the  plot  becomes  defi 
nitely  fixed  in  the  mind  of  the  top  gallery. 
These  two  figures,  Death  and  Apollo,  stand 
like  huge,  crude  images  at  the  portal  of  the 
play.  They  are  grotesque,  and  are  intended 
to  be  so.  One  must  remember  that  every 
thing  in  the  Greek  theatre  had  to  be  larger 
than  life  as  well  as  symbolic  in  character. 
Inasmuch  as  the  physical  scale  of  the  setting 
is  enlarged,  the  ideas  themselves  must  be 
simplified  and  exaggerated.  The  masked 
characters  on  the  Greek  stage  must  always 
be  thought  of  as  great  marionettes,  rather 
than  as  men.  Their  language  will  always  be 
wrong,  and  often  becomes  intolerable  if 
imagined  as  coming  from  the  mouths  of 
actors  in  a  small  theatre.  In  a  great  Greek 
theatre  the  costume  and  dialogue  formed  a 
sort  of  sign-language  of  conventional  exag 
geration.  Realism  is  never  in  question :  the 
fact  that  the  whole  affair  is  a  fiction  is  al 
ways  held  in  mind  by  the  Greek.  The  Greek 
does  not  do  this  on  purpose ;  he  cannot  help 
doing  it.  The  whole  play  is  to  him  merely 
the  image  of  an  idea  cast  upon  the  screen  of 
the  imagination.  So  then,  Death  and  Apollo 


GREEK  GENIUS 

strike  at  each  other  with  verbal  truncheons, 
till  Apollo,  becoming  exasperated,  prophesies 
that  he  is  going  to  triumph  in  the  end,  be 
cause  Heracles  is  to  appear  and  save  the 
situation.  Thus  ends  the  prologue.  Death 
goes  into  the  palace  to  execute  his  office  upon 
Alcestis;  Apollo  departs  in  another  direc 
tion. 

<~  The  chorus  of  women  wailers  now  begin 
yto  creep  in,  in  a  furtive,  distributive  manner, 
land  to  ask  questions  of  each  other  as  to 
Kvhether  Alcestis  is  really  dead  yet.  "Ah, 
what  a  woman !  No  one  ever  was  like  her ! 
.  .  .  How  can  we  save  her  now?  .  .  .  Not 
even  a  voyage  to  Libya  will  recover  her 
now!  ...  Ah  me,  ah  me!  ...  But  is  she 
really  laid  out  yet  ?  I  don't  see  the  signs  of 
mourning  on  the  house.  .  .  .  O  Admetus, 
you  don't  know  yet  how  great  your  loss  is !" 
etc.,  etc.  This  chorus  gives  a  pianissimo 
introduction  to  that  wholesale  blubbering 
and  wailing,  the  luxurious  smiting  and  rend 
ing  and  sobbing  of  conventional  grief,  which 
will,  a  little  later,  roll  from  the  orchestra 
across  the  delighted  and  gloating  audience. 
A  Greek  play  is  an  opera  and  its  effects  are 
operatic.  The  iterations  of  idea,  which  the 
great  size  of  the  theatre  made  necessary, 
were  accomplished  through  the  questionings 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

and  comments  of  the  Chorus,  which  acted  as 
a  sounding-board.  The  Chorus  retards  the 
action  and  keeps  magnifying  the  reverbera 
tions  of  thought  and  sending  them  to  every 
part  of  the  auditorium. 

The  grieving  women  are  now  confronted 
by  a  maid-servant,  who  enters  from  the  cen 
tral  doors  and  describes  the  last  moments  of 
Alcestis.  No  picture  was  ever  framed  with 
more  art  than  this  of  Alcestis.  It  is  gigantic 
in  scale,  but  the  exaggerations  are  so  man 
aged  that  five  thousand  people  can  enjoy  it 
as  well  as  if  it  were  a  miniature  held  in 
their  hands.  The  servant  describes  the  last 
hours  of  her  mistress:  "When  she  per 
ceived  that  the  destined  day  was  come,  she 
washed  her  fair  skin  with  water  from  the 
river;  and  having  taken  from  her  closet  of 
cedar  vesture  and  ornaments,  she  attired 
herself  becomingly;  and  standing  before  the 
altar,  she  prayed :  'O  mistress,  since  I  go 
beneath  the  earth,  adoring  thee  for  the  la'st 
time,  I  will  beseech  thee  to  protect  my  or 
phan  children,  and  to  the  one  join  a  loving 
wife,  and  to  the  other,  a  noble  husband  :  nor, 
as  their  mother  perishes,  let  my  children  un 
timely  die,  but  happy  in  their  paternal  coun 
try  let  them  complete  a  joyful  life.'  And 
then  to  all  the  altar  which  are  in  the  house 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  Admetus  she  went,  and  crowned  them, 
and  prayed,  tearing  the  leaves  from  off  the 
myrtle  boughs,  tearless,  without  a  groan ;  nor 
did  the  approaching  evil  change  the  natural 
beauty  of  her  skin.  And  then  rushing  to  her 
chamber  and  her  bed,  there  indeed  she  wept 
and  spoke  thus :  *O  bridal  bed,  whereon  I 
loosed  my  virgin  zone  with  this  man,  for 
whom  I  die,  farewell !  For  I  hate  thee  not ; 
but  me  alone  hast  thou  lost ;  for  dreading  to 
betray  thee  and  my  husband,  I  die ;  but  thee 
some  other  woman  will  possess,  more  chaste 
there  cannot  be,  but  perchance  more  fortu 
nate/  And  falling  on  it  she  kissed  it;  and 
all  the  bed  was  bathed  with  the  flood  that 
issued  from  her  eyes.  .  .  .  And  her  chil 
dren,  hanging  on  the  garments  of  their 
mother,  wept;  but  she,  taking  them  in  her 
arms,  embraced  them,  first  one,  and  then  the 
other,  as  about  to  die.  And  all  the  domestics 
wept  throughout  the  house,  bewailing  their 
mistress,  but  she  stretched  out  her  right 
hand  to  each,  and  there  was  none  so  mean 
but  she  addressed  him,  and  was  answered  in 
return.  Such  are  the  woes  of  the  house  of 
Admetus.  And  had  he  died  indeed,  he 
would  have  perished;  but  now  that  he  has 
escaped  death,  he  has  grief  to  that  degree 
which  he  will  never  forget." 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

The  picture  is  exquisite  and  impersonal. 
The  pose,  supplied  by  the  legend,  has  been 
studied  with  care.  Each  fold  in  the  robe 
is  significant.  The  character  is  a  mere  re 
sultant  from  the  accurate  following  of  the 
fable.  Here  we  have  the  touch  of  ''Eu 
ripides  the  Human,  with  his  droppings  of 
warm  tears,"  as  Mrs.  Browning  called  him. 
Yet  nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth 
than  to  imagine  that  Euripides  himself  wept 
while  penning  this  scene  or  any  other.  Mrs. 
Browning's  line  leaves  us  a  little  too  much  in 
doubt  as  to  just  who  is  doing  the  weeping. 
The  Greek  artist  does  not  weep,  and  Eu 
ripides  the  least  of  all  men.  Precisely  the 
same  method  is  pursued  by  him  in  depicting 
Admetus.  This  equivocal  character  is  pro 
vided  by  the  plot.  Admetus  must  exact  his 
wife's  sacrifice,  and  yet  moan  mightily.  His 
situation  is  ridiculous,  and  yet  it  is  insisted 
upon  with  stoical  rigour  by  Euripides,  who 
saws  the  character  out  of  the  board,  and 
sticks  it  up  in  all  its  crudity  and  self-contra 
diction;  and  lo,  instead  of  becoming  a 
blemish,  it  becomes  a  foil  and  adds  lustre  to 
the  play. 

"Admetus,"  continues  the  maid-servant, 
"is  at  this  moment  holding  his  dying  \vife  in 
his  arms,  and  is  beseeching  her  not  to  betray 


GREEK  GENIUS 

him,  not  to  forsake  him,— impracticable  re 
quests."  Again  the  Chorus  in  antiphonal 
crescendo  lash  themselves  to  a  climax  of 
professional  woe,  such  as  all  ancient  peoples 
indulged  in,  and  such  as  may  be  heard  in  any 
Hebrew  cemetery  at  the  present  day.  Curi 
ously  enough,  the  Greek  phrases  here  give 
forth  an  Hebraic  clang.  "Cry  aloud,  wail, 
O  land  of  Pherae!  Never,  never  will  I  say 
that  marriage  brings  more  joy  than  grief," 
etc. 

The  opera  now  begins  in  earnest.  Alcestis 
enters,  assisted  by  Admetus.  Two  children, 
a  boy  and  a  girl,  cling  to  her  skirts.  A  duet 
ensues,— an  actual  duet  with  musical  ac 
companiment.  Both  Alcestis  and  Admetus 
burst  into  song  at  the  very  top  of  passionate 

utterance ; 
\ 

"Alcestis.  O  sun-god,  lamp  of  day !  O  scud 
ding  clouds  that  dance  along  the  sky ! 

Admetus.  He  sees  thee  and  me  also, — two 
sufferers  who  have  done  nothing  worthy 
of  death. 

Alcestis.  O  Earth !  O  sheltering  roof !  and 
ye  chambers  of  my  maidenhood,"  etc. 

She  sees  the  skiff  of  Charon ;  she  feels  the 
hand  of  death  clutching  her.  Her  limbs  are 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

giving  way,  the  halls  of  Hades  loom  over 
her:  she  calls  wildly  to  her  children.  Ad- 
metus  continues  to  put  in  his  "me  too"  in  the 
proper  tenor  voice.  The  scene  is  like  the 
end  of  the  first  act  of  grand  opera.  Both 
characters  are  at  the  footlights,  singing  their 
uttermost.  The  tenor  is  clutching  the  lady's 
wrist  and  she  is  straining  towards  the  stars. 

But  a  Greek  play  was  never  divided  into 
acts,  and  so,  when  the  spasm  is  over,  Alces- 
tis  collects  herself  for  her  great  testamentary 
speech.  Here  is  another  masterpiece  of  the 
pathetic,  which  rehearses  the  entire  situation. 
Alcestis  begs  Admetus  not  to  marry  again, 
for  fear  lest  a  stepmother  should  maltreat 
the  children.  Admetus  consents,  and  pro 
ceeds  to  lift  a  long-drawn  tragic  wail, 
precisely  as  if  he  were  a  moral  hero.  He 
will  wear  mourning,  not  for  a  year,  but  all 
his  life;  he  will  forego  music  and  company. 
He  will  have  an  image  made  by  cunning 
artists,  and  place  it  in  his  bed,  and  upon  this 
he  will  cast  himself  in  paroxysms  of  unavail 
ing  grief. 

Admetus'  character  is  that  of  a  wooden 
nut-cracker;  and  we  feel  a  note  of  irony,  a 
note  almost  of  humour,  when  these  exalted 
sentiments  flow  from  him.  It  is  true  that 
any  diminution  of  the  size  of  the  theatre 

DO 


GREEK  GENIUS 

would  tinge  Admetus'  speeches  here  with 
burlesque.  But  as  they  stand  they  are  not 
burlesque.  The  exaggeration  is  precisely  in 
keeping  with  the  exaggeration  of  Alcestis 
herself.  The  merit  of  the  whole  lies  in  the 
subtlety  with  which  the  scale  of  values  is 
adhered  to.  These  edges  and  curvatures, 
taken  together,  are  what  cast  the  image  on 
the  air.  Euripides  is  merely  setting  the  le 
gend  upon  the  stage  in  an  effective  way,  so 
that  a  child  or  a  peasant  can  enjoy  it. 

When  Admetus  has  made  an  end  of  his 
threnody,  there  follows  a  final  duet  in  prose, 
—at  the  end  of  which  Alcestis  dies.  The 
boy  then  flings  himself  upon  his  mother's 
body,  music  sounds  and  the  voice  of  a  hidden 
singer  behind  the  scenes  gives  the  lyric: 
"Hear  me,  hear  me,  mother,  I  implore  thee !" 

/Xlcestis'  body  is  borne  into  the  palace,  fol- 
/  lowed  by  Admetus  and  the  children ;  and  the 

^Chorus  raises  a  quiet,  conventional,  soothing 
/and  very  beautiful  hymn:  "Daughter  of 

i  Pelias,  be  thine  a  happy  life  in  the  sunless 
home  of  Hades'  halls !  Of  thee  the  Muses' 
votaries  shall  sing  on  the  seven-stringed 
mountain  shell  in  hymns  without  a  harp." 
Nothing  could  be  more  satisfying  than  the 
simple  subsidence  of  this  whole  sad  episode : 
the  closing  of  the  palace  doors,  the  peaceful 

0:1 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

music;  and  thereupon — what  next  follows 
—the  unexpected,  sudden  appearance  of 
Heracles,  ignorant,  boorish,  and  good- 
hearted, — radiant  Heracles,  the  demigod 
and  friend  to  man.  He  falls  into  chat  with 
the  Chorus  about  a  mission  which  he  has 
undertaken  into  Thessaly,  and  about  the 
dangers  of  his  life  in  a  general  way.  Here 
we  have  a  plunge  from  tragedy  into  joyful 
comedy  of  a  Shakespearian  kind, — a  transi 
tion  very  unusual  in  Greek  plays.  Greek 
drama  is  full  of  variety,  and  the  tints  of  its 
clouds  change  at  every  moment;  but  the 
gradations  are  generally  slight.  These  ex 
tremes  in  the  Alccstis  were,  no  doubt,  what 
puzzled  the  critics  to  classify  the  play.  A 
talk  now  ensues  between  Heracles  and  the 
Chorus,  which  resembles  a  conversation  be 
tween  a  schoolboy  and  the  coachman.  It 
touches  on  hard  adventures,  fire-breathing 
steeds,  heroic  strife.  Then  re-enter  Ad- 
metus,  this  time  as  the  host  who  has  heard 
that  his  old  friend  is  at  the  door.  The  scene 
is  buskined,  of  course;  but  the  substance  of 
it  is  the  meeting  of  hearty  comrades,  club 
men,  no  longer  young : 

"My  dear  fellow!  how  are  you?  Quite 
well,  I  trust?" 

"I  should  hope  so!  And  you,  old  man?" 
C333 


GREEK  GENIUS 

"You  stay,  of  course  ?" 

"So  it  seems." 

"Bravo !    Your  room  is  ready." 

"But  how  about  all  this  mourning?  Not 
one  of  the  family,  I  hope?" 

"Yes,  no,— a  relative,  yet  no  relation. 
I  '11  tell  you." 

"It  is  impossible,  you  know,  for  me  to 
come  in  and  be  entertained  by  you  while  the 
mourning  is  going  on." 

"Your  room  is  on  the  other  side  of  the 
house.  A  woman,  my  dear  boy, — a  sort  of 
dependent.  (To  the  servants.)  Here,  some 
of  you  fellows,  show  Heracles  his  room  and 
be  quick  about  it !" 

This  burly  Admetus,  it  must  be  observed, 
has  no  relation  to  the  whining  Admetus  of 
the  first  act.  No  attempt  is  made  to  connect 
them.  There  is  no  such  thing  in  a  Greek 
play  as  what  we  to-day  should  call  character- 
drawing.  The  artist  is  always  merely  dress 
ing  a  stock  character,  or  giving  his  own 
version  of  a  well-known  tale.  The  problem 
is  to  illustrate  the  legend;  the  characters 
must  look  after  themselves;  they  come  out 
right  if  the  legend  is  right.  If  the  legend, 
as  in  this  case,  cracks  up  a  character  into 
separate  personalities,  nobody  objects;  it  is 
all  the  more  entertaining.  After  all,  the 

C343 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

progress  of  almost  every  good  plot,  whether 
ancient  or  modern,  depends  upon  the  fact 
that  somebody  acts  in  a  very  unlikely  way. 
The  modern  writer  wastes  his  talents  in  toil 
ing  at  this  weak  place.  The  ancient  accepts 
it  cheerfully.  This  is  one  of  the  blessings  of 
having  legend  as  a  foundation  for  fiction. 
The  absurdities  are  the  very  points  that  no 
one  will  question. 

Admetus  enters  the  palace,  and  the  Chorus 
sings  a  lyric  in  praise  of  the  hospitality  of 
his  house,  "where  Pythian  Apollo,  the  sweet 
harper,  once  deigned  to  make  his  home,  while 
spotted  lynxes  couched  amid  the  sheep  in  joy 
to  hear  his  melodies, — since  which  time 
riches  and  blessings  arc  poured  upon  one 
who  welcomes  the  guest,  though  his  eyes  are 
wet  with  tears ;  and  at  my  heart  sits  the  be 
lief  that  heaven's  servant  will  be  blessed." 

There  next  ensues  a  most  amusing  and 
original  scene  which  Euripides  throws  in  as 
a  make-weight  on  the  comic  side.  The 
corpse  of  Alcestis  is  borne  forth  upon  a  bier ; 
Admetus  comes  with  it ;  a  train  is  formed  to 
accompany  the  corpse  to  the  pyre.  The 
small  procession  is,  however,  confronted  by 
another  small  procession  which  appears  from 
the  wings :  Pheres,  the  father  of  Admetus, 
has  come  with  his  conventional  condolences 


GREEK  GENIUS 

and  ritual  gifts  for  the  dead,  the  gifts  being 
borne  by  servants.  We  had  forgotten 
Pheres,  though,  from  time  to  time,  someone 
on  the  stage  had  spoken  ill  of  him  because 
of  his  refusal  to  die  for  his  son.  Pheres 
himself  is  entirely  unconscious  of  the  odium 
in  which  he  stands,  and  he  makes  a  proper 
speech.  He  is  met  by  a  torrent  of  abuse 
from  Admetus.  The  Chorus  protests  against 
the  indecency  of  this  public  quarrel;  but 
Pheres  though  old  is  not  feeble,  and  defends 
himself  with  scorching  power.  Again  the 
Chorus  is  shocked;  and  a  line-for-line, 
hammer-and-tongs  Billingsgate  follows,  of 
the  sort  dear  to  the  Athenian  audience.  The 
protagonists  finally  separate,  leaving  shafts 
in  the  air:  each  has  his  cortege  behind  him 
as  he  hurls  back  insults :  "Go  bury  thy  vic 
tim  with  the  hand  that  murdered  her!"  "I 
disown  thy  paternal  hearth,  and  if  need  be,  I 
will  proclaim  it  by  heralds !" 

This  scene  is  intolerable  if  taken  seriously ; 
but  is  delightful  if  we  bear  in  mind  while 
reading  it  the  so-called  "New  Comedy"  of 
the  Greeks,  which  survives  only  in  the  form 
of  the  Roman  imitations.  This  New  Com 
edy  was  a  comedy  of  manners,  and  came  to 
blossom  a  couple  of  generations  later  than 
Aristophanes.  On  its  stage  fathers  and 

C363 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

sons,  masters  and  servants,  live  in  a  hurly- 
burly  of  rapid-fire  talk.  The  modern  Italian 
name  for  this  sort  of  scene  is  botta  e  ris- 
posta.  The  roots  of  the  New  Comedy  un 
doubtedly  extended  back  into  classic  drama, 
and  it  is  thus  quite  natural  that  Euripides 
should  have  written  a  scene  that  must  be 
read  by  the  light  of  Plautus. 

The  next  scene  is  frankly  comic,  and  in 
the  very  greatest  manner.  The  arrival  of 
Heracles  at  the  house  of  mourning,  and  his 
innocent,  gluttonous  feasting  while  the  dead 
body  lies  in  the  next  room,  is  one  of  the  most 
vigorous  ideas  in  Greek  mythology,  and  is 
exactly  fitted  for  the  stage.  First  comes  a 
servant's  description  of  Heracles'  revelry 
and  wassailing,  and  next  enter  Heracles  him 
self,  in  his  cups,  and  crowned  with  myrtle. 
He  gives  the  speech  which  might  be  called 
"Heracles'  advice  to  servants" : 

"Ho,  you  there!  What  scowling,  what 
pomposity !  Is  that  the  way  to  treat  a  guest  ? 
Why  don't  you  be  polite?  But  what  does 
one  like  you  know  about  life?  Come  here; 
listen  to  me.  All  must  die,  and  no  man 
knows  if  he  shall  see  the  morrow's  dawn. 
Fate  walks  darkling,  and  cannot  be  caught 
with  all  your  cleverness.  Now  list,  learn, 
be  wise  by  me.  What  of  it  all  then,  I  say? 

D7] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

What  of  it  all?  Why,  drink  and  bless  thy 
self  with  the  day.  Dismiss  all  else  into  the 
realm  of  chance.  Second,  avoid  chastity; 
for  Venus  is  a  goddess.  As  for  the  rest, 
trust  one  that  knows :  for  I  am  right  about 
this !  What,  man !  Dismiss  thy  bad  temper ; 
crown  thy  brows,  and  smooth  them  out,  too. 
The  splash  of  the  wine  will  cure  thee !  Leave 
the  dead  for  dead,  and  get  wisdom ;  for  the 
knotted  forehead  of  piety  never  knew  a  life 
that  was  life  at  all,  but  only  pure  misery." 

Heracles'  attack  on  the  servant  naturally 
leads  to  an  explanation  of  the  cause  of 
mourning  in  the  house,  and  to  the  imme 
diate  sobering  up  of  Heracles  himself.  His 
soliloquy  follows, — the  solemn  address  in 
which  he  declares  his  intention  of  lying  in 
wait  for  Death  at  the  tomb  of  Alcestis,  of 
overcoming  the  monster  with  his  mighty 
hands,  and  of  restoring  the  woman  to  the 
noble  host  who  had  concealed  his  sorrow 
rather  than  drive  the  guest  from  the  door. 
Heracles  goes  off  to  watch  by  the  tomb,  and 
immediately  enter  Admetus. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  enjoy  a  little 
more  wailing  and  lyrical  business.  The  re 
turn  to  the  empty  house  is  celebrated  in 
antiphony  between  the  Chorus  and  Admetus. 
They  begin  piano: 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

"Home  again!  Alas,  what  have  you  not 
suffered!  Ah  me,  a  noble  wife  buried!" 

"Ah,  you  touch  the  wound !  How  can  I 
bear  to  see  my  own  roof-tree!  I  envy  the 
dead.  I  envy  the  childless !" 

"You  are  not  the  first." 

"Why  did  you  prevent  me  from  leaping 
into  the  tomb?" 

"It  must  be  borne." 

"O  to  contrast  this  day  with  the  hour 
when  I  entered  this  house, — with  the  mar 
riage  torch,  and  the  shout  of  banqueting; 
but  now,  grave-clothes  for  wedding  gar 
ments,  and  woe  for  hymns.  The  empty 
couch,  the  chairs  she  sat  in, — the  desolation 
of  it  drives  me  out!" 

This  scene  gives  the  poet  a  new  opportu 
nity,  and  again  "Euripides  the  Human" 
works  up  all  possible  suggestions  of  the 
pathetic  with  cunning  hand.  There  is,  per 
haps,  a  touch  of  virtuosity  in  the  appeal. 
One  feels  that  one  is  being  played  upon :  the 
hand  is  almost  too  cunning.  Yet  who  can 
regret  its  skill?  The  wooden  Admetus  of 
the  earlier  part  and  the  burly  clubman  Ad 
metus  of  the  central  scene  are  here  succeeded 
by  a  romantic  Admetus,— a  throstle-throated 
widower,  who  mourns  his  lost  saint.  The 
very  dust  on  the  furniture  smites  the  wretch, 

on 


GREEK  GENIUS 

till  he  declares  in  true  penitence  that  he 
wishes  he  had  not  made  the  bargain.  "This 
—this  is  worse  than  death !" 

No  one  can  deny  the  dramatic  beauty  of 
Admetus'  grief  in  this  scene.  The  beauty  is 
just  the  part  that  gets  lost  in  transcription. 
Here  is  a  speech  comparable  to  one  of  the 
great  arias  in  an  Italian  opera.  When  Eu 
ripides  chooses  to  be  sweet,  there  is  hardly 
anything  like  his  sweetness  in  all  literature. 
The  lines  have  a  thrill  like  the  appeal  of  a 
tenor  voice.  We  can  and  ought  to  weep,  not 
bitterly  but  happily,  as  the  Italian  matron 
does  at  the  melodrama,  murmuring,  "E 
bello!  Ebello!" 

When,  shortly  after  this,  Heracles  returns 
with  the  veiled  lady,  whom  he  says  he  has 
won  in  an  open-to-all  prize  contest,  he  finds 
Admetus  extremely  unwilling  to  take  her  in ; 
and  from  this  point  to  the  end  of  the  play, 
which  is  not  far  distant,  we  have  one  of 
those  stage  situations  of  the  perfect  comedy, 
— touching,  gay,  charming  and  obvious, — 
the  thing  the  stage  exists  for,  the  only  dan 
ger  being  lest  the  lucky  playwright  shall  drag 
it  out  and  overdo  it;  which  Euripides  does 
not.  Heracles  beseeches  Admetus  to  harbour 
the  lady  for  a  season,  as  a  special  and  per 
sonal  favour.  Admetus  is  divided  between 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

his  reverence  for  the  god  and  his  regard  for 
appearances.  He  is,  in  fact,  caught  between 
his  own  two  crack  virtues — hospitality  and 
professional  widowhood.  At  last  he  gives 
way  and  the  play  closes  quietly  and  quickly 
with  half  a  dozen  stock  lines  from  the 
Chorus. 

It  is  clear  at  a  glance  that  the  Alcestis  be 
longs  to  an  epoch  of  extreme  sophistication. 
Everything  has  been  thought  out  and  pol 
ished;  every  ornament  is  a  poem.  If  a 
character  has  to  give  five  words  of  explana 
tion  or  of  prayer,  it  is  done  in  silver.  The 
tone  is  all  the  tone  of  cultivated  society,  the 
appeal  is  an  appeal  to  the  refined,  casuistical 
intelligence.  The  smile  of  Voltaire  is  all 
through  Greek  literature ;  and  it  was  not 
until  the  age  of  Louis  XIV,  or  the  Regency, 
that  the  modern  world  was  again  to  know  a 
refinement  and  a  sophistication  which  recall 
the  Greek  work.  Now,  in  one  \vord,  this 
subtlety  which  pleases  us  in  matters  of  senti 
ment  is  the  very  thing  that  separates  us  from 
the  Greek  upon  the  profoundest  questions  of 
philosophy.  Where  religious  or  metaphys 
ical  truth  is  touched  upon,  either  Greek 
sophistication  carries  us  off  our  feet  with  a 
rapture  which  has  no  true  relation  to  the 
subject,  or  else  we  are  offended  by  it.  We 


GREEK  GENIUS 

do  not  understand  sophistication.  The 
Greek  has  pushed  aesthetic  analysis  further 
than  the  modern  can  bear.  We  follow  well 
enough  through  the  light  issues,  but  when 
the  deeper  questions  are  reached  we  lose 
our  footing.  At  this  point  the  modern  cries 
out  in  applause,  "Religion,  philosophy,  pure 
feeling,  the  soul!"— He  cries  out,  "Mystic 
cult,  Asiatic  influence,  Nature  worship,— 
deep  things  over  there!"— Or  else  he  cries, 
"What  amazing  cruelty,  what  cynicism!" 
And  yet  it  is  none  of  these  things,  but  only 
the  artistic  perfection  of  the  work  which  is 
moving  us.  We  are  the  victims  of  clever 
stage  management. 

The  cruder  intelligence  is  ever  compelled 
to  regard  the  man  of  complex  mind  as  a 
priest  or  as  a  demon.  The  child,  for  in 
stance,  asks  about  the  character  in  a  story, 
"But  is  he  a  good  man  or  a  bad  man,  papa?" 
The  child  must  have  a  moral  explanation  of 
'anything  which  is  beyond  his  aesthetic  com 
prehension.  So  also  does  the  modern  intel 
ligence  question  the  Greek. 

The  matter  is  complicated  by  yet  another 
element, — namely,  stage  convention.  Our 
modern  stage  is  so  different  from  the  classic 
stage  that  we  are  bad  judges  of  the  Greek 
playwright's  intentions.  The  quarrels  which 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

arise  as  to  allegorical  or  secondary  meanings 
in  a  work  of  art  are  generally  connected 
with  some  unfamiliar  feature  of  its  setting. 
A  great  light  is  thrown  upon  any  work  of  art 
when  we  show  how  its  form  came  into  being, 
and  thus  explain  its  primary  meaning.  Such 
an  exposition  of  the  primary  or  apparent 
meaning  is  often  sufficient  to  put  all  sec 
ondary  meanings  out  of  court.  For  in 
stance  :  It  is,  as  we  know,  the  Germans  who 
have  found  in  Shakespeare  a  coherent  philo 
sophic  intention.  They  think  that  he  wrote 
plays  for  the  purpose  of  stating  metaphys 
ical  truths.  The  Englishman  does  not 
believe  this,  because  the  Englishman  is  fa 
miliar  with  that  old  English  stage  work.  He 
knows  its  traditions,  its  preoccupation  with 
story-telling,  its  mundane  character,  its 
obliviousness  to  the  sort  of  thing  that  Ger 
many  has  in  mind.  The  Englishman  knows 
the  conventions  of  his  own  stage,  and  this 
protects  him  from  finding  mares'-nests  in 
Shakespeare.  Again,  Shakespeare's  son 
nets  used  to  be  a  favourite  field  for  mystical 
exegesis,  till  Sir  Sidney  Lee  explained  their 
form  by  reference  to  the  sixteenth-century 
sonnet  literature  of  the  Continent.  This  put 
to  flight  many  theories. 

In  other  words,  the  appeal  to  convention 
C431 


GREEK  GENIUS 

is  the  first  duty  of  the  scholar.  But,  unfor 
tunately,  in  regard  to  the  conventions  of  the 
Classic  Stage,  the  moderns  are  all  in  the 
dark.  Nothing  like  that  stage  exists  to-day. 
We  are  obliged  to  make  guesses  as  to  its  in 
tentions,  its  humour,  its  relation  to  philos 
ophy.  If  the  classics  had  only  possessed  a 
cabinet-sized  drama,  like  our  own,  we  might 
have  been  at  home  there.  But  this  giant 
talk,  this  megaphone-and-buskin  method, 
offers  us  a  problem  in  dynamics  which  stag 
gers  the  imagination.  All  we  can  do  is  to 
tread  lightly  and  guess  without  dogmatising. 
The  typical  Athenian,  Euripides,  was  so 
much  deeper-dyed  in  scepticism  than  any 
one  since  that  day,  that  really  no  one  has 
ever  lived  who  could  cross-question  him,— 
let  alone  expound  the  meanings  of  his  plays. 
In  reading  Euripides,  we  find  ourselves  ready 
to  classify  him  at  moments  as  a  satirist, 
and  at  other  moments  as  a  man  of  feeling. 
Of  course  he  was  both.  Sometimes  he  seems 
like  a  religious  man,  and  again,  like  a  char 
latan.  Of  course  he  was  neither.  He  was 
a  playwright. 


IV 

THE  BACCHANTES 

HPHE  coherence  of  any  scheme  of 
-L  thought,  even  though  it  be  co 
herence  of  thought  shown  in  the  operation 
of  a  loom  for  weaving  carpets,  excites  in 
us  a  glow  of  admiration.  We  give  to  it 
almost  a  sentimental  response  of  feeling. 
Thus  the  subtle  Greek  fire  which  lies  hidden 
beneath  the  technical  development  of  tragic 
themes  upon  the  stage  has  always  aroused  a 
vague  religiosity  in  modern  poets,  even 
when  the  themes  dealt  with  were  revolting 
or  the  stage  effects  were  unknown  or  unap 
preciated  by  modern  scholars.  To  Mil 
ton,  to  Goethe,  to  Swinburne,  a  Greek  play 
is  a  feast  of  solemn  declamation  and  of  lyri 
cal  hymning,  whose  merit  lies  in  the  su 
preme  beauty  of  its  language  and  in  the  sup 
posed  moral  exaltation  of  its  ideas.  Cer 
tainly  the  original  Greek  is  characterised  by 
great  beauty  of  language;  but  a  play  is 
something  more  than  a  feast  of  song.  A 
play  is  an  exciting,  varied,  and  deeply  mov- 
[45] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ing  exhibition,  where  every  word  sparkles 
with  action,  and  every  action  with  wit.  Dec 
lamation  and  beauty  are  mere  servants  to 
the  plot  and  progress  of  the  drama.  In  seek 
ing  to  understand  Greek  plays  we  must  for 
get  Milton  and  think  rather  of  Moliere.  We 
must  do  all  that  we  can  to  recover  the  vital 
ity  and  the  element  of  entertainment  which 
the  original  possessed.  In  this  way  alone 
can  we  arrive  at  a  guess  as  to  what  the  work 
meant  to  its  first  audiences. 

I  have,  on  an  earlier  page,  likened  a  Greek^ 
tragedy  to  an  opera,  because  the  opera  is  its\ 
nearest  living  congener,  and  is  a  thing  na-  j 
tive  and  familiar  to  us  all.  Strictly  speaking, 
a  Greek  play  was  a  musical  drama;  that  is 
to  say,  the  spoken  word,  unaccompanied  by 
music,  was  the  foundation  and  road-bed  of 
the  drama:  music  was  kerjt_fpj_the__adorii- 
ment  of  excitingpassages^and  jor  climaxes. 
SucTTlOltvTsiorrbf  territory  between  speech 
and  song  is  the  most  effective  that  can  be 
imagined  on  the  stage;  and  it  was  an  infi 
nite  loss  to  modern  drama  when  the  musi 
cians  began  to  overrun  the  whole  of  the 
libretto.  The  solemnity,  the  dead  serious 
ness  of  spoken  words,— to  which  the  story 
was  constantly  returning,  and  from  which 
it  again  leaped  into  music  as  from  a  spring- 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

board, — lent  a  sternness  and  a  variety  to 
Greek  drama,  which  opera  can  never  achieve 
until  it  shall  adopt  the  Greek  system  as  to 
the  use  of  music.  Half  the  power  of  the 
lyric  is  thrown  away  by  making  the  whole 
text  lyrical.  We  see  in  this  disposition  of 
the  libretto  by  the  Greeks  an  example  of  that 
mastery  which  is  in  all  their  artistic  work. 
A  Greek  work  of  art  is  aesthetically  cor 
rect  :  it  is  always  right. 

LET  us  now  examine  the  Bacchantes, 
which  is  very  unlike  the  Alccstis  in  exter 
nals;  and  yet  very  like  it  in  metaphysical 
make-up  and  in  stage  technique.  The  in 
dulgent  reader  will  remember  that  it  is  im 
possible  to  give  an  account  of  a  play  with 
out  making  that  very  sort  of  philosophic 
abstract  which  must  always  be  false.  A 
play  is  its  own  meaning,  and  no  transcript 
will  convey  it.  Any  analysis  must  be  re 
garded  as  a  mere  finger-post  directing  the 
reader  towards  the  text. 

The  Bacchantes  is  as  remarkable  as  any 
thing  in  Hellenic  art.  The_daring  of  it,  the 
brilliancy^ofj_tj_tlie^outrageousne^s  of  it,  the 
mockery  it  suggests  and  the  gaiety  with 
which  it  proceeds,  its  beauty  and  intellect,— 
are  all  subordinated  to  the  success  of  the 
C47] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

whole  as  a  dramatic  show.  No  wonder  that 
Euripides  did  not  publish  the  Bacchantes 
during  his  lifetime.  The  natural  power  in 
it,j&as_enQugh  to  hang  any  man;  and  Eu- 
rjpides-was^Ir£ady_a>susgect.  He  had  been 
banished  from  Athens  for  some  reason  that 
is  not  known,  but  which  was  perhaps  con 
nected  with  his  treatment  of  religious  topics 
on  the  stage.  We  often  commit  witticisms 
to  the  air,  and  then  hold  our  breath  and 
hope  for  the  best;  and  if  the  Bacchantes  had 
happened  to  come  out  at  the  moment  of  an 
Athenian  military  defeat,  the  audacities  of  it 
might  have  led  to  a  tragedy  in  real  life. 

The  Bacchantes  is  supposed  by  modern 
scholars  to  be  a  mystical  allegory.  Both  the 
Germans  and  the  Britons  agree  upon  this. 
There  is,  as  Mr.  Tyrrell  says,  "an  ethical 
contentment  and  speculative  calm  in  the 
play."  I  quote  from  the  preface  of  Mr. 
I.  T.  Beckwith's  edition  where  Bernhardy 
(Griech.  Ltg.)  is  cited.  Mr.  Beckwith  thus 
describes  the  Baccliantes:  "A  play:  in  which 
faith  €etebrates-it&j*it_es  and  unbeljef..is  put 
to  shame,  must,  by  reason  of  the  seriousness 
of  its  import  and  the  lofty  religious  inspira 
tion  pervading  the  whole  and  manifesting 
itself  in  many  brilliant  and  profound  utter 
ances,  have  attained  great  fame  in  antiquity. 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

It  was  much  read,  as  the  frequent  citations 
and  reminiscences  in  the  Greek  and  Roman 
writers  show,  and  was  often  cited."  .  .  . 
"The  choral  odes  follow  the  progress  of  the  \ 
action  more  closely  perhaps  than  in  any  other 
play  of  Euripides,  expressing  the  emotions 
that  accompany  a  devout  faith  as  it  passes 
from  the  most  buoyant  hopefulness,  through 
a  gradually  darkening  struggle,  out  again 
into  a  complete  triumph.'* 

Before  leaving  the  serious  part  of  the  sub 
ject  I  cannot  forbear  to  quote  a  few  words 
of  Teutonic  learning  which  illustrate  the 
great  Nature-Myth  Discovery  of  the  nine 
teenth  century.  This  particular  suggestion  is 
cited  with  respect  and  without  a  smile  by 
British  and  American  scholars.  The  theory 
concerns  the  birth  of  Dionysus.  As  is  well 
known,  Semele,  the  mother  of  Dionysus, 
being  with  child  by  Zeus,  desired  to  see  the 
god,  but  was  unable  to  bear  the  divine  pres 
ence,  and  so  died;  or,  as  others  assert,  she 
was  killed  by  a  thunderbolt  launched  by 
Hera.  The  child,  being  thus  prematurely 
born,  was  taken  by  Zeus  and  carried  about 
in  his  own  thigh,  held  in  by  gold  pins.  He 
was  afterwards  secreted  in  Asia  Minor  at 
Mount  Tmolus  near  Sardis.  The  following 

o 

is  a  foot-note  in  Mr.  Beckwith's  edition : 
C491 


GREEK  GENIUS 

"Nysa,  to  whose  nymphs  the  infant 
Dionysos  was  sent,  is  located  by  Homer  in 
Thrace.  But  in  later  times  mention  is  made 
of  a  Nysa  in  Thessaly,  Euboea,  Boeotia, 
.  .  .  Arabia,  India,  and  other  places. "  In 
this  uncertainty  as  to  location,  Wecklein 
finds  an  indication  of  the  origin  of  the  Di- 
onysiac  myth,  which  he  explains  as  follows : 
"Nysa,  like  Aia,  the  land  of  the  golden 
fleece,  was  originally  thought  of  as  in  the 
heavens,  and  was  afterwards  transferred  to 
earth.  The  rain-cloud,  big  with  tempest,  is 
the  mother  of  Dionysos;  the  cloud-gather 
ing  god  of  the  storms  is  his  father.  When, 
after  a  flash  and  heavy  peal  of  thunder,  the 
cloud  bursts  in  a  short  and,  as  it  were,  pre 
mature  shower,  a  simple  imagination  con 
ceived  of  this  as  an  untimely  birth  of  the 
rain  from  the  cloud.  This  na'ive  representa 
tion  led  to  the  personification  of  the  cloud 
as  Semele  and  the  rain  as  Dionysos." 

We  may  observe  in  this  note  the  heavy 
German  psychologist  placing  his  ponderous, 
elephantine  hypothesis  carefully  upon  the 
incalculable  sallies  of  Greek  fancy;  and  let 
us  observe  next,  the  solemnity  of  the  Angli 
can  "Amen."  Mr.  Cruickshank  finds  that 
"the  analogy  is,  at  any  rate,  obvious  and 
striking." 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

So  far  as  the  thought  goes,  one  can  imag 
ine  Plato's  introducing  this  very  explana 
tion  of  the  premature  birth  of  Dionysus  into 
one  of  his  dialogues.  But  Plato  would  have 
used  it  as  the  closing  snapper  of  a  scene, 
when  the  company  were  fatigued,  or  the 
subject  was  about  to  change.  He  would 
have  allowed  Socrates  to  suggest  the  idea 
demurely,  just  before  some  interruption,  so 
as  to  raise  a  laugh  and,  at  the  same  time,  to 
escape  responsibility.  Socrates  would,  no 
doubt,  protest  that  he  had  the  story  from  a 
third  party,  and  merely  desired  to  know 
whether  the  company  thought  it  important. 
The  whole  matter  would  thus  have  been  left 
in  the  realm  of  imaginative  humour,  where 
it  belongs.  But  the  German  has  laid  down  the 
law  of  the  myth  as  if  it  were  a  sausage ;  and 
the  Englishman  has  swallowed  the  sausage 
and  pronounced  it  good.  Such  were  the 
Greeks ;  and  such  are  the  moderns. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  text  of  the  Bac 
chantes,  not  learnedly,  but  casually.  Ac 
cording  to  the  legend,  the  Bacchantes  who 
tore  Pentheus  to  pieces  were  the  followers 
of  Dionysus,  and  were  punishing  Pentheus 
for  his  refusal  to  worship  the  new  god. 
Pentheus  and  Dionysus  were  first-cousins, 
being  granclsons  ot  Cadmus  by  his.  two 


GREEK  GENIUS 

daughters,  Agave  and  Semele.  Cadmus  was, 
of  course,  among  the  most  respectable  pa 
triarchs  of  Greece,  one  of  the  Argonauts; 
and,  at  the  time  the  story  begins,  he  had 
resigned  the  government  of  Thebes,  turning 
it  over  to  his  grandson  Pentheus. 

At  the  opening  of  the  play  Dionysus  en 
ters  as  Prologue,  and  explains  that  he  has 
come  disguised  as  a  mortal  with  the  Bac 
chantes  in  his  train  to  establish  his  religion 
in  Greece.  He  has  been  all  over  Asia  Minor 
and  now  comes  to  Thebes,  the  home  of  his 
family  and  the  first  Greek  city  that  he  has 
entered.  The  smoking  ruins  of  the  palace 
where  Hera's  thunderbolt  had  fallen  and 
killed  his  mother  have  now  been  fenced  off 
as  a  sanctuary,  and  they  form  part  of  the 
palace  before  which  the  action  proceeds. 
The  god  has  come  back  to  his  birthplace  in 
order  to  punish  his  mother's  two  sisters, 
who  have  never  taken  the  story  of  his  divine 
birth  seriously,  but  have  ridiculed  his  preten 
sions  from  the  beginning.  He  has  come  dis 
guised  as  a  handsome,  effeminate-looking 
youth,  in  order  to  move  among  the  people 
and  excite  them  before  his  origin  is  sus 
pected.  It  appears  that,  as  a  result  of  his 
charms,  all  the  women-folk  of  Thebes  are 
already  wandering  in  the  mountains  in  Bac- 

on 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

chic  frenzy.  Pentheus  is  fighting  against 
the  new  religion;  but  both  Pentheus  and 
Thebes  shall  soon  discover  that  Dionysus  is 
a  god. 

He  closes  his  address  to  the  Chorus : 
"Take  your  drums,  your  native  instruments 
of  Phrygia,  the  invention  of  Mother  Rhea 
and  myself,  and  coming,  beat  them  about 
this  royal  palace  of  Pentheus,  that  the  city 
of  Cadmus  may  see  it.  In  the  meantime  I 
will  to  the  mountains,  to  join  the  rout  of 
bacchanal  women." 

The  whole  play  is  thus  in  full  swing  in  a 
moment ;  and  as  Dionysus  makes  his  exit 
the  Maenads  begin  their  dance.  The  long 
opening  chorus  in  which  the  wild  women 
chant  the  praises  of  Dionysus,  has  in  it  such 
a  rhythm  as  to  bring  the  dancers  with  their 
streaming  hair,  their  fawn-skins,  their  great 
tambourines,  their  Phrygian  flutes  and  their 
thyrsus-spears  before  the  reader.  Nothing 
is  left  of  all  the  din  and  frenzy,  nothing  of 
the  dancing  and  shouting  of  those  inspired 
Bacchantes,  except  the  beat  of  their  pulses 
which  has  somehow  been  left  in  the  blood  of 
the  verse.  It  is  impossible  to  read  the  lines, 
no  matter  how  ignorant  one  may  be  as  to 
the  theory  of  Greek  metres,  without  hearing 
the  thud  of  feet  and  seeing  files  of  mad- 

C533 


GREEK  GENIUS 

dened  women  with  their  heads  thrown  back, 
dancing  in  time,  and  uttering  irregular,  sav 
age  ejaculations  that  mingle  with  the  pipes 
and  tambourines,  while  the  steady  undertone 
of  the  words  and  the  incessant  onward  drive 
of  the  circling  phalanxes  fling  spells  upon 
the  air.  The  very  length  of  this  scene  en 
gulfs  the  reader;  and,  in  the  acting,  where 
repetitions  were  no  doubt  resorted  to,  the 
whole  amphitheatre  must  have  been  thrown 
into  a  daze  and  cradled  to  blind  happiness 
by  the  brilliant,  barbaric  costumes,  by  the 
movement  and  by  the  music. 

As  the  opening  feature  of  an  opera  this 
chorus  is  a  masterly  and  thrilling  work.  Be 
fore  the  dance  is  half  finished  the  spectator 
has  forgotten  everything  in  the  world  ex 
cept  the  play  before  him.  Against  this  "back 
ground  Euripides  now  introduces  two  very 
old  men,  who  are  among  the  most  sacred 
figures  in  Greek  mythology,— Tiresias,  the 
mythical  soothsayer,  a  name  as  old  as  Ho 
mer,  and  Cadmus,  the  ancestral  hero  and 
founder,— Cadmus,  the  great  mythic  Hel 
lene.  One  might  almost  say  that  these  old 
men  represent  Moses  and  Aaron.  They  come 
in  dressed  for  Bacchic  rites,  with  thyrsi  in 
their  hands,  garlands  of  ivy  on  their  heads, 
— beribboned  for  the  fray.  It  appears  that 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

they  are  converts  to  the  new  religion.  They 
exhibit  the  characters  of  gay  old  bourgeois, 
delighted  at  their  own  temerity,  knowing 
they  will  be  laughed  at,  yet  resolved  to  enjoy 
themselves.  They  are  off  for  the  mountains. 
The  audience  must  have  gripped  its  um 
brellas  with  joy:  "This  is  too  good  to  be 
true!  Is  it  humourous.?  Js.lt  serious?"  One 
hardly  knows.  But  it  is  certainly  the  best 
thing  ever  done  on  the  stage !  The  old  dar 
lings  enter,  meeting  as  by  appointment,  clap 
each  other  on  the  shoulder,  admire  each 
other's  dresses,  swear  they  will  dance  like 
good  ones, — they  alone  of  the  city.  "But  they 
alone  are  wise!  They  will  not  be  ashamed 
of  their  old  age,  not  they!  The  god  never 
intended  to  distinguish  between  old  and 
young,  but  demands  worship  from  all ! 
They  join  hands  in  rapture  (Tiresias  being 
blind)  and  are  about  to  leave,  when  enter 
the  gloomy  and  boorish  Pentheus.  As  a  foil 
to  the  old  gentlemen  Pentheus  is  perfect. 
He  is  young,  and  he  is  angry.  He  now  de 
scribes  how  all  the  women  in  his  kingdom, 
including  his  mother  and  his  two  aunts,  have 
been  led  off  to  the  woods  by  an  odious,  ef 
feminate,  scented  youth  with  long  locks. 
The  men  have  joined  the  women.  -It.  is  a 
saturnalia  of  drink  and  debauchery.  Pen- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

theus  has  already  arrested  some  of  the  wo 
men,  and  intends  to  catch  the  stranger  and 
put  him  in  chains.  One  sees  that  Pentheus 
wears  already  the  rigidity  of  madness  in  his 
eye.  Although  he  is  undoubtedly  in  the 
right,  and  is  the  only  person  on  the  stage 
with  whom  any  sensible  man  can  sympathise, 
he  is  made  so  unpleasant,  and  the  old  men 
are  made  so  charming,  that  our  hearts  go 
against  decency  and  order. 

When  he  reproaches  Tiresias  for  joining 
the  rabble  and  disgracing  his  white  hair  and 
his  profession,  Pentheiis_  becomes  so  unjust 
and  so  rude  that  ^we  are  against  him"  for 
being  a  lout.  Tiresias,  in  a  long,  doddering 
reply  to  Pentheus,  now  praises  the  divinity 
of  Bacchic  worship,  including  the  value  of 
drunkenness,  speaks  lightly  of  women's 
chastity,  expounds  legends,  describes  scen 
ery,  and  remains  perfectly  charming.  Old 
Cadmus  adds  a  hint  that  as  Dionysus  is  one 
of  the  family,  Pentheus  ought  to  pretend  to 
believe  in  him,  anyway.  This  is  one  of  those 
human  touches  that  Euripides  manages  to 
throw  into  the  tragic  scenery  in  some  of  his 
plays  as  no  one  else  has  ever  done  or  could 
do.  He  surprises  you  with  a  smile  in  the 
midst  of  the  whirlwind.  In  like  manner,  in 
the  Orestes,  when  Helen  cuts  off  a  lock  of 

1:563 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

hair  to  lay  upon  the  tomb  of  her  aunt 
Clytemnestra,  some  one  cries  out,  "See  now 
how  the  hussy  has  cut  it  off  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  will  not  spoil  her  beauty.  She  is  the 
same  woman  she  always  was !" 

This  scene  of  the  two  old  men  belongs 
among  the  greatest  things  in  drama.  It  js 
beautiful  ;atjs_ridiculous ;  it  is  pathetic ;  it  is 
toe.JsjiajtureiiLi5.very  nearly  but  not  quite 
burlesque ;  it  is  in  contrast  to  the  rest  of  the 
play.  The  old  gentlemen  are  a  little  senile, 
perhaps,  but  they  are  sweet-tempered,  and 
represent  all  that  is  benign  and  tolerant  in 
old  age.  They  now  join  hands  again,  sup 
porting  each  other  as  they  leave  the  stage 
and  declaring  that  they  will  pray  for  Pen- 
theus  and  so  strive  to  avert  the  punishments 
for  his  impiety.  The  Chorus  after  this  de 
parture  celebrates  the  vita  gioiosa  in  a  hymn 
to  Bacchus  and  Venus,  and  in  a  way  so  far 
beyond  modern  comprehension  in  its  beauty 
and  abandonment,  that  we  are  tempted  to 
call  it  religious.  But  it  is  not  religious. 
Make  it  a  little  grosser  and  it  will  be  a  drink 
ing-song.  But  it  is  not  a  drinking-song.  It 
is  not  gross :  it  is  as  refined  as  Praxiteles,— 
and  as  conventional.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  mere 
necessary,  aesthetic  member  of  the  dramatic 
whole. 

1:573 


GREEK  GENIUS 

We  are  taught  throughout  this  play  that 
anyone  who  resists  Dionysus  is  an  innovator, 
and  thus  all  the  tag-rags  of  prejudice  against 
new  ideas  are  marshalled  in  the  choruses 
against  Pentheus.  The  following  is  a  sam 
ple  :  "True  w|sdoinj^_tp_keerjjthe  heart  and 
soul  aloof  from  over-subtlewitsi  That 
which  the  less  enlightened  crowd  approves 
and  practises  will  I  accept."  There  must  be 
a  dozen  such  saws  scattered  through  the 
choruses,  and  the  dramatic  purpose  of  them 
is  evidently  to  explain  and  justify  the  doom 
of  Pentheus.  Now  inasmuch  as  Dionysus 
was  a  new  god  introducing  a  new  religion, 
without  a  tradition  to  support  him,  all  this 
appeal  to  tradition  is  ridiculous.  But  the 
alchemy  of  good  stage-writing  takes  no  ac 
count  of  logic,  except  stage  logic.  The 
stage  is  like  politics.  Any  reasoning  that 
will  patch  the  plot  serves  the  purpose.  And 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  person 
who  is  going  to  be  punished  by  fate  in  a 
Greek  tragedy  should  appear  to  be  kicking 
against  established  religious  feeling.  Other 
wise  the  old  stock  phrases  and  proverbial 
moralities  in  the  choruses  could  not  be  used 
with  effect.  The  Maenads  had  no  counter 
part  in  the  real  life  of  Athens  and  Thebes, 
and  we  may  suppose  that  the  Athenian  au- 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

dience  accepted  all  these  matters  imagina 
tively,  and  as  a  part  of  the  donnce  of  the 
play.  We  do  the  same  in  accepting  our  stage 
villains  and  the  heroes  of  our  fiction. 

The  dramatic  interest  in  the  Bacchantes, 
from  the  moment  when  Pentheus  and 
Dionysus  first  meet,  consists  in  watching 
Dioqysii&Jlpl  a  y!I_Pentheus  (and  later  play 
Pentheus'  mother,  Agave)  as  a  fisherman 
plays  a  trout.  From  one  point  of  jview  it  is 
tjoe-—*nest—  cojiiplejL.--and.  .  .finished  piece  of 
Jn  the  world.  From  the  dramatic 


point  of  view  it  is  an  intense,  careful,  logical, 
breathlessly  interesting  study  of  madness,— 
that  sort  of  madness  which  the  Greek  drama 
loved,  which  was  cast  upon  a  man  by  the 
gods.  From  the  point  of  view  of  those  who 
garrison  the  modern  strongholds  of  Learn 
ing  the  play  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  mystical 
drama  typifying  the  quiet  life. 

To  return  to  the  story.  As  soon  as  the 
first  Chorus  of  Maenads  has  finished  its 
strain  in  praise  of  the  vita  gioiosa  there  fol 
lows  a  picturesque  scene.  Dionysus  is 
brought  in  guarded,  and  has  a  verbal  bout 
with  the  tyrant  Pentheus.  Goethe  saw  an 
analogy  between  this  scene  and  the  tableau 
of  Christ  before  Pilate;  and  in  truth,  the 
situation,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  tremen- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

dous;  but  the  interview  is  conducted  on  a 
low  plane.  The  god  is  in  a  casuistical 
mood.  There  is  much  back-talk,  and  double 
entendre,  and  an  atmosphere  of  drawing- 
room  dialectics. 

"I  will  cast  thy  body  into  prison !" 

"The  god  will  release  me." 

"The  god?    Where  is  he?" 

"Near  me ;  but  thine  impious  eyes  see  him 
not." 

"Servants,  seize  this  fellow!  He  insults 
me." 

"You  know  not  why  you  live  or  what  you 
do." 

"Away  with  him  to  prison !" 

If  Euripides  has  avoided  the  sublime  in 
his  handling  of  this  judgment  scene,  it  must 
be  noted  that  he  could  not  have  put  on  the 
tall  cothurnus  of  yEschylus  here  without  re 
modelling  his  entire  play.  His  Dionysus 
stands  throughout  the  drama  on  a  level  with 
Pentheus,  who  is  dealt  with  as  an  antagonist. 
The  scene  is  vital,  if  not  noble:  it  is  first- 
rate  popular  drama. 

The  stranger  god  is  now  led  off  to  be  in 
carcerated.  The  Chorus  sings  a  wild,  ter 
rible  strain,  calling  upon  Dionysus  to  save 
himself.  It  is  not  long  before  the  power  of 
the  deity,  who  is  in  chains  within  the  palace, 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

begins  to  make  itself  manifest.  The  palace 
rocks,  flames  burst  forth,  and  Dionysus  re 
appears  on  the  steps  of  the  building.  There 
ensues  an  antiphonal  duet  between  the  god 
and  the  Chorus,  fortissimo  tutti.  It  is  tre 
mendous  :  it  is  ^YfrnH^rful  I — Hie  verses  of 
the  libretto  are  short,  but  of  a  perfectly 
amazing  force.  They  seem  to  be  running  to 
a  fire.  It  must  be  that,  as  in  modern  times, 
the  effect  of  this  scene  was  ensured  by  repeti 
tions  of  the  musical  scheme;  for  the  text  of 
the  duet  as  it  stands  is  too  short  to  have  any 
carrying  power. 

When  quiet  has  been  restored,  Dionysus 
proceeds  to  give  the  Chorus  a  vivid  account 
of  what  happened  in  the  stable,  and  of  how 
he  frustrated  the  infuriated  Pentheus.  The 
low  moral  tone  of  Dionysus'  dealings  with 
Pentheus  is  maintained  in  this  lyrical  ac 
count  of  how  he  tricked  and  exasperated  his 
victim.  For  Pentheus,  thinking  to  bind  the 
god,  enchained  a  bull,  which  he  found  in  the 
stable.  Breathing  out  fury  and  sweating 
from  his  body,  the  madman  dashed  about  in 
the  stable,  while  the  god  sat  by  and  mocked 
him.  Such  mockery,  by  the  way,  \vas,  in 
the  Greek  imagination,  the  worst  thing  that 
could  befall  a  man.  There  is  hardly  a  page 
of  Greek  tragedy  which  does  not  reveal  the 


GREEK  GENIUS 

fear  of  being  laughed  at,  which  walks  like  a 
spectre  in  the  Greek  soul.  Even  Medea, 
whose  practical  sorrows  and  desperate  situa 
tion  seem  to  require  no  such  remote  meta 
physical  motive,  kills  her  children  largely 
out  of  fear  that  she  will  be  ridiculed  for  her 
insuccess  in  life. 

The  recitation  by  Dionysus  of  his  triumph 
in  the  stable  is  a  sample  of  sustained  decla 
mation  in  trochaic  tetrameters.  Such  pas 
sages  seem  to  have  been  a  feature  in  Greek 
drama;  and  one  canaftt  read  them  without 
being  convinced  that  they  were  accompanied 
by  some  sort  of  conventional  gesture.  The 
actor  perhaps  moved  forward  and  back, 
keeping  time  in  words,  gesture,  and  step — 
probably  facing  the  Chorus  and  doing  a  sort 
of  pas  seul  Almost  exactly  the  same  kind 
of  business  was  practised  on  the  old  Italian 
stage,  and  it  survives  in  Rossini's  operas. 

The  trochaic  tetrameter,  which  in  our 
minds  is  connected  with  slow  solemnity, 
because  of  its  use  in  Longfellow's  "Tell  me 
not  in  mournful  numbers,"  seems  to  have 
been  used  by  the  Greeks  in  passages  of 
cumulative  excitement,  as,  for  instance,  in 
dialogues  of  discovery,  where  the  rising 
emotions  of  the  speakers  are  reflected  in  the 
jerky,  shrill  movement  of  the  verse.  This 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

metre  has  often  been  used  with  the  same 
effect  in  English,  as,  for  instance,  in  that 
dramatic  lyric,  "Just  in  time  for  Lanigan's 
Ball."  Euripides  employs  it  here  in  describ 
ing  the  scene  in  the  stable,  where  Pentheus 
was  dashing  about  with  a  drawn  sword  to 
slay  the  god. 

Pentheus  now  rushes  on  the  stage,  pretty 
well  exhausted.  "I  have  suffered  terrible 
things,"  he  shouts ;  "the  stranger  has  escaped 
me !"  Dionysus  greets  him  calmly.  "Did  I 
not  say  or  did  you  not  hear  that  someone 
would  deliver  me?"  "I  order  ye  to  close 
every  tower  all  round!"  shouts  Pentheus  to 
the  servants.  But  the  god,  who  has  now 
become  gentle,  if  not  kind,  promises  not  to 
escape  while  they  both  listen  to  the  tale  of 
the  First  Messenger. 

Enter  the  First  Messenger  with  those  de 
scriptions  of  the  miraculous  doings  of  the 
Bacchantes  in  the-  forest,  upon,  jwhieh-  jest 
most  of  our  modern  notions  .about  these 
mysteries.  The  man  has  actually  seen  the 
daughters  of  Cadmus  leading  the  whole 
Bacchic  rout.  At  first  he  saw  them  all  asleep. 
Then  they  waked.  And  then  "they  let  loose 
their  hair  over  their  shoulders ;  and  arranged 
their  deer-skins,  as  many  as  had  had  the 
fastenings  of  their  knots  unloosed,  and  they 

£63:1 ' 


GREEK  GENIUS 

girded  the  dappled  hides  with  serpents  lick 
ing  their  jaws;  and  some  having  in  their 
arms  a  kid,  or  the  wild  whelps  of  wolves, 
gave  them  white  milk,  all  those  who,  having 
lately  had  children,  had  breasts  still  full, 
having  left  their  infants.  And  they  put  on 
their  ivy  chaplets,  and  garlands  of  oak  and 
blossoming  yew.  And  one  having  taken  a 
thyrsus,  struck  it  against  a  rock,  whence  a 
dewy  stream  of  water  springs  out;  another 
placed  her  wand  on  the  ground,  and  then 
the  god  sent  up  a  spring  of  wine.  .  .  ." 

This  picture  of  the  Maenads  at  play  is  fol 
lowed  by  another  of  a  different  sort.  The 
messenger,  with  the  aid  of  certain  shepherds, 
had  attacked  the  Bacchantes  and  had  been 
badly  defeated.  "We  then,  flying,  avoided 
the  tearing  of  the  Bacchse,  but  they  sprang 
on  the  heifers  browsing  the  grass  with  un 
armed  hand,  and  you  might  see  one  rending 
asunder  a  fatted  lowing  calf,  and  others  rent 
open  cows,  and  you  might  see  either  ribs,  or 
a  cloven- footed  hoof,  tossed  here  and  there. 
And  hanging  beneath  the  pine-trees  the"  frag 
ments  were  dripping,  dabbled  in  gore;  and 
the  fierce  bulls,  before  showing  their  fury 
with  their  horns,  were  thrown  to  the  ground, 
overpowered  by  myriads  of  maidens'  hands. 
For  their  pointed  spear  was  not  made 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

bloody,  but  the  women,  hurling  the  thyrsi 
from  their  hands,  wounded  them,  and  turned 
their  backs  to  flight,  women-def eating  men.; 
notwithotttJii£^id-JxLseme  god.  And  they 
went  back  again  to  the  place  whence  they 
had  departed,  to  the  same  fountains  which 
the  god  had  caused  to  spring  up  for  them, 
and  they  washed  off  the  blood;  and  the 
snakes  with  their  tongues  cleansed  the  drops 
from  their  cheeks.  ..." 

The  .sffedL oL. this _  .tale  i s_  to_harden J?en- 
theus  the  more.  He  orders  out  the  troops. 
Nothing  can  dissuade  him.  The  messenger 
warns;  Dionysus  begs  him  to  submit. 
Dionysus  even  offers  to  go  himself  to  the 
mountains  and  fetch  the  revellers  to  Thebes. 
But  Pentheus  suspects  a  trick  of  some  sort, 
and  clamours  for  his  arms.  It  is  at  this 
point,  and  while  Pentheus  is  plainly  blear- 
eyed  with  enchantment,  that  Dionysus  sug 
gests  a  clever  ruse, — namely,  that  Pentheus 
and  he  shall  visit  the  mountains  together  and 
ensconce  themselves  in  some  safe  hiding- 
place  from  which  to  view  the  sport.  Pen 
theus  shall  go  disguised  as  a  woman,  and  the 
god  will  dress  him  and  guide  him  to  the  spot. 
They  will  pass  through  the  city  together, 
following  deserted  byways;  they  will  spy 
upon  the  mysteries.  Pentheus'  eyes  gleam 


GREEK  GENIUS 

with  excitement,  and  he  goes  off  the  stage 
to  assume  the  required  dress.  Dionysus  fol 
lows  him,  waiting  only  to  throw  to  the 
Chorus  a  lyric  vaunt,  "O  Women,  the  man 
is  in  the  toils,  and  he  will  come  to  the  Bac- 
chae,  where,  dying,  he  will  pay  the  penalty." 

The^  time  during  which__the__change  of 
clothes  is  accomplished  is  occupied  by  the 
Chorus  in  a  paean  of  exultant  triumph  over 
the  impious  man;  and  then  re-enter  Diony 
sus  leading  Pentheus  dressed  as  a  woman. 
The  unfortunate  wretch  is  in  the  clutches  of 
mania.  He  sees  two  suns,  and  Thebes  ap 
pears  to  him  as  if  twinned  into  two  cities. 

"How  do  I  look?  Do  I  look  like  my 
mother,  or  like  my  aunt  Ino?" 

"Very  like  them;  but  this  lock  of  hair  is 
out  of  place." 

"I  disarranged  it  in  practising  the  Bacchic 
steps." 

"Let  me  set  it  right.  But  hold  up  your 
head !  And  your  girdle  is  crooked,  and  your 
fringes  hang  awry." 

"My  right  leg  is  all  wrong,  I  admit;  but 
the  robe  on  the  other  side  seems  about  cor 
rect.  Should  I  hold  the  thyrsus  in  my  right 
hand  or  in  the  left?" 

"Now  you  are  perfect." 

"I  feel  as  if  I  could  bear  the  whole  moun- 
C66] 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

tain  on  my  shoulders,  Bacchantes  and  all.  I 
lay  my  hand  to  terrible  things." 

"Yo_u_a.re  terrible;  and  terrible  are  the 
sufferings  that  are  to  follow.  Your  renown 
shall  reach  to  heaven." 

It  is  impossible  to  suggest  in  English  the 
woven  tissue  of  sarcasm  of  the  Greek  text 
throughout  the  play.  The  brilliancy  of  shot 
meanings,  one  sparkling  from  behind  the 
other,  was  a  passion  with  the  Greeks.  They 
loved  it  as  they  loved  encrusted  gold. 

Here,  in  this  scene  of  the  dressing  up  of 
Pentheus,  we  have  comic  writing  of  gigantic 
effectiveness ;  for  it  is  both  comic  and  tragic. 
The  malignant  deity  attacks  his  victim  with 
gibes  of  irony.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
in  the  scene  between  Faust  and  Mephis- 
topheles  \vhere  the  helplessness  of  mortals 
in  the  presence  of  supernatural  power  is 
the  point  in  demonstration,  Goethe  makes 
Mephistopheles  put  Faust  to  sleep,  and  then 
laugh  in  an  aside,  "Du  bist  noch  nicht  der 
Mann  den  Teufel  fest  zu  halten !"  So  mild 
are  the  moderns;  so  terrible  were  the  an 
cients. 

What  makes  us  shudder  is  not  so  much 
the  idea  of  a  god  manipulating  a  mortal,  as 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  carried  out.  No 
modern  could  bear  either  to  write  or  to  wit- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ness  the  cruelties  practised  by  Dionysus 
upon  Pentheus.  In  those  places  where  the 
god  deals  gently,  it  is  with  a  cat-and-mouse 
malevolence;  and  in  the  later  scenes  of  the 
play  Dionysus'  asides  have,  as  Mr.  Cruick- 
shank  remarks,  the  ferocity  of  a  wild  beast. 
We  ought  to  judge  of  these  horrors  not 
rashly,  but  by  the  light  of  that  whole  system 
of  conventional  horror,  and  the  stage  sym 
bols  of  horror,  which  were  developed  by  the 
Greek  theatre  and  which  will  be  discussed 
later  herein. 

While  we  pause  to  take  an  ice  in  the  foyer 
between  the  acts  of  this  terrific  drama,  let  us 
recall  the  words  of  the  good  Mr.  Tyrrell, 
who  finds  "an  ethical  contentment  and  specu 
lative  calm"  in  the  play. 

After  the  joint  departure  of  Pentheus  and 
Dionysus  for  the  mountains,  the  Chorus 
sing  another  paean— "Go,  ye  fleet  hounds  of 
madness,  go  to  the  mountains  where  the 
daughters  of  Cadmus  hold  their  company; 
drive  them  raving  against  the  fanatic  man 
who  came  to  spy  on  the  Maenads, — him  in 
woman's  attire,"  etc.  We  have  not  long  to 
wait  for  news  of  the  expedition;  for  the 
Second  Messenger  arrives  almost  imme 
diately  and  gives  a  blood-curdling  descrip 
tion  of  how  the  miserable  Pentheus  has  been 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

murdered  by  his  own  mother,  Agave.  We 
begin  to  feel  that  the  climax  is  approaching, 
and  we  are  not  disappointed;  for,  before  we 
can  draw  breath,  Agave  enters,  carrying  in 
her  arms  the  gory  head  of  her  son,  which 
she  believes  to  be  the  head  of  a  mountain 
lion.  We  now  realise  that  Agave's  conver 
sion  has  been  the  work  of  a  madness  super 
induced  by  the  god  in  punishment  for  her 
former  apostasy.  She  is  still  out  of  her 
wits,  and  boasts  of  killing  the  lion  with  her 
own  hands.  She  pets  the  head,  comments  on 
its  crest,  fondles  its  soft  hair.  She  is  in 
terrogated  by  the  Chorus;  she  is  urged 
gently  forward  from  point  to  point  till  every 
shade  of  her  delirious  vanity  touching  her 
imaginary  prowess  as  a  huntress  is  exposed, 
and  every  depth  of  humiliation  is  gently 
touched. 

In  this  scene  we  have  the  substance  and 
climax  of  Greek  tragedy, — namely,  horror. 
The  manner,  also,  in  which  the  whole  has 
moved  forward,  its  sheets  of  coruscating 
irony,  its  flashes  of  godlike  power  exercised 
against  the  worm,  show  the  triumph  and 
climax  of  Greek  method. 

The  destruction  of  Pentheus  and  of 
Agave  is  followed  by  a  scene  very  charac 
teristic  of  Euripides,— namely,  a  scene  of 


GREEK  GENIUS 

secondary  pathos,  the  drip  under  the  eaves 
after  the  storm  has  passed.  Cadmus  and 
his-wrfe  are  dismissed  by  the  sorrowing 
Dionysus,  and  are  compelled  to  wander 
away  to  other  lands,  being  drawn  in  an  ox 
cart.  This  putcome^js  j^ part  of  the  legend, 
and  is  therefore  excellent  play-writing. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  justice  the  out 
come  is  absurd;  for  the  pious  Cadmus  had 
welcomed  the  god.  But  for  stage  purposes 
a  "condoling"  scene  was  needed.  After  the 
rending  and  the  madness  one  must  have  a 
little  quiet  weeping  to  accompany  the  sad 
return  to  one's  senses ;  it  ends  the  play  bet 
ter.  Just  so,  in  the  Hippolytus,  the  gory, 
dying  son  of  Theseus  is  brought  back  upon 
the  stage  for  a  scene  of  reconciliation  with 
his  now  penitent  father.  Euripides  the 
Human,  with  his  droppings  of  warm  tears, 
comes  round  with  his  mop  at  the  end  of  the 
play,  and  the  nice  old  contadina  is  waiting 
to  receive  her  pittance — which  we  had  for 
gotten — as  we  leave  the  box. 

The  complex  finale  of  the  Bacchantes  is 
arrived  at  slowly,  and  many  beauties  lie  scat 
tered  along  the  way,  some  of  them  obvious, 
like  the  sudden  appearance  of  Dionysus  and 
the  shattering  of  the  palace  walls;  many  of 
them  incommunicable,  like  the  changes  in 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

the  verse-forms  and  the  swing  of  many 
pounding,  sing-song  metres,  which  would  be 
intolerable  in  English,  yet  are  beautiful  in 
Greek.  Such  is  the  Bacchantes  of  Eu 
ripides.  You  cannot  touch  it  anywhere 
without  receiving  a  shock.  There  is  not  a 
moment  in  the  course  of  the  play  which  does 
not  tingle. 


THE  GREEK  CHORUS  —  HORROR  AND  IRONY 

THE  Bacchantes,  like  every  other  Greek 
play,  is  the  result,  first,  of  the  legend; 
second,  of  the  theatre.  There  is  always 
some  cutting  and  hacking,  due  to  the  diffi 
culty  of  getting  the  legend  into  the  building. 
Legends  differ  as  to  their  dramatic  possi 
bilities,  and  the  incidents  which  are  to  be  put 
on  the  stage  must  be  selected  by  the  poet. 
The  site  of  the  play  must  be  fixed.  Above 
all,  a  Chorus  must  be  arranged  for. 

The  choosing  of  a  Chorus  is  indeed  one 
of  the  main  problems  of  the  tragedian.  If 
he  can  hit  on  a  natural  sort  of  Chorus  he  is 
a  made  man.  In  the  Alcestis  we  saw  that 
the  whole  background  of  grief  and  w^ailing 
was  one  source  of  the  charm  of  the  play. 
Not  only  are  the  tragic  parts  deepened,  but 
the  gayer  scenes  are  set  off  by  this  feature. 
If  the  fable  provides  no  natural  and  obvious 
Chorus,  the  playwright  must  bring  his 
Chorus  on  the  stage  by  stretching  the 

C731  ' 


GREEK  GENIUS 

imagination  of  the  audience.  He  employs 
a  group  of  servants  or  of  friends  of  the 
hero;  if  the  play  is  a  marine  piece,  he  uses 
sailors.  The  whole  atmosphere  of  his  play 
depends  upon  the  happiness  of  his  choice. 

In  the  Agamemnon  "the  old  men  left  at 
home"  form  the  Chorus.  There  is  enough 
dramatic  power  in  this  one  idea  to  carry  a 
play.  It  is  so  natural:  the  old  men  are  on 
the  spot;  they  are  interested;  they  are  the 
essence  of  the  story,  and  yet  external  to  it. 
These  old  men  are,  indeed,  the  archetype  of 
all  choruses, — a  collection  of  bystanders,  a 
sort  of  little  dummy  audience,  intended  to 
steer  the  great,  real  audience  into  a  compre 
hension  of  the  play. 

The  Greek  dramatist  found  this  very  use 
ful  machine,  the  Chorus,  at  his  elbow;  but 
he  was,  on  the  other  hand,  greatly  controlled 
by  it.  It  had  ways  of  its  own :  it  inherited 
dramatic  necessities.  The  element  of  con 
vention  is  so  very  predominant  in  the  han 
dling  of  Greek  choruses  by  the  poets,  that 
we  have  in  chorus  work  something  that  may 
be  regarded  almost  as  a  constant  quality.  By 
studying  choruses  one  can  arrive  at  an  idea 
of  the  craft  of  Greek  play-writing, — one  can 
even  separate  the  conventional  from  the  per 
sonal,  to  some  extent. 

on 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

The  Greek  Chorus  has  no  mind  of  its 
own;  it  merely  gives  echo  to  the  last  dra 
matic  thought.  It  goes  forward  and  back, 
contradicts  itself,  sympathises  with  all  par 
ties  or  none,  and  lives  in  a  limbo.  Its  real 
function  is  to  represent  the  slow-minded 
man  in  the  audience.  It  does  what  he  does, 
it  interjects  questions  and  doubts,  it  delays 
the  plot  and  indulges  in  the  proper  emotions 
during  the  pauses.  These  functions  are 
quite  limited,  and  were  completely  under 
stood  in  Greek  times ;  so  much  so,  that  in  the 
typical  stock  tragedy  of  the  ^schylean 
school  certain  saws,  maxims,  and  reflections 
appear  over  and  over  again.  One  of  them,  of 
course,  was,  "See  how  the  will  of  the  gods 
works  out  in  unexpected  ways."  Another, 
"Let  us  be  pious,  and  reverence  something 
that  is  perhaps  behind  the  gods  themselves." 
Another,  "This  is  all  very  extraordinary:  let 
us  hope  for  the  best."  Another,  "Our  feel 
ings  about  right  and  wrong  must  somehow 
be  divine;  traditional  morality,  traditional 
piety,  are  somehow  right." 

Precisely  the  same  reflections  are  often 
put  in  the  mouths  of  the  subordinate  charac 
ters,  and  for  precisely  the  same  purpose.  "O 
may  the  quiet  life  be  mine !  Give  me  neither 
poverty  nor  riches:  for  the  destinies  of  the 


GREEK  GENIUS 

great  are  ever  uncertain."  "Temptation 
leads  to  insolence,  and  insolence  to  destruc 
tion"  ;  and  so  forth.  Such  reflections  serve 
the  same  purpose,  by  whomever  they  are 
uttered.  They  underscore  the  moral  of  the 
story  and  assure  the  spectator  that  he  has 
not  missed  the  point. 

As  religious  tragedy  broadened  into  po 
litical  and  romantic  tragedy,  the  Chorus 
gained  a  certain  freedom  in  what  might  be 
called  its  inter jectional  duty, — its  duty,  that 
is  to  say,  of  helping  the  plot  along  by  proper 
questions.  It  gained  also  a  Protean  free 
dom  in  its  emotional  interpretations  during 
pauses.  The  playwrights  apparently  discov 
ered  that  by  the  use  of  music  and  dancing, 
the  most  subtle  and  delicate — nay,  the  most 
whimsical — varieties  of  lyrical  mood  could 
be  conveyed  to  great  audiences.  In  spite  of 
this  license,  however,  the  old  duties  of  the 
Chorus  as  guardians  of  conservative  moral 
ity  remained  unchanged;  and  the  stock 
phrases  of  exhortation  and  warning  re 
mained  de  rigueur  in  the  expectation  of  the 
audience.  Their  meaning  had  become  so  well 
known  that  by  the  time  of  ^Eschylus  they 
were  expressed  in  algebraic  terms. 

No  man  could  to-day  unravel  a  Chorus  of 
./Eschylus  if  only  one  such  Chorus  existed. 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

The  truncated  phrases  and  elliptical 
thoughts  are  clear  to  us  because  we  have 
learned  their  meaning  through  reiteration, 
and  because  they  always  mean  the  same 
thing.  The  poet  has  a  license  to  provide  the 
Chorus  with  dark  sayings, — dark  in  form, 
but  simple  in  import.  It  was,  indeed,  his 
duty  to  give  these  phrases  an  oracular  char 
acter.  In  the  course  of  time  such  phrases 
became  the  terror  of  the  copyists.  Obscure 
passages  became  corrupt  in  process  of  tran 
scription  ;  and  thus  we  have  inherited  a  whole 
class  of  choral  wisdom  wThich  we  under 
stand  well  enough  (just  as  the  top  gallery 
understood  it  well  enough)  to  help  us  in  our 
enjoyment  of  the  play.  The  obscurity,  and 
perhaps  even  some  part  of  what  we  call 
"corruption,"  are  here  a  part  of  the  stage 
convention. 

Now  with  regard  to  the  Bacchantes,  the 
scheme  of  having  Maenads  for  a  Chorus 
gave  splendid  promise  of  scenic  effect;  and 
the  fact  that,  as  a  logical  consequence,  these 
ladies  would  have  to  give  utterance  to  the 
usual  maxims  of  piety,  mixed  in  with  the 
rhapsodies  of  their  professional  madness, 
did  not  daunt  Euripides.  He  simply  makes 
the  Chorus  do  the  usual  chorus  wrork  with 
out  burdening  his  mind  about  character- 
1771 


GREEK  GENIUS 

drawing.  Thus  the  Maenads,  at  moments 
when  they  are  not  pretending  to  be  Maenads, 
and  are  not  singing,  "Away  to  the  moun 
tains,  O  the  foot  of  the  stag,"  and  so  on,  are 
obliged  to  turn  the  other  cheek  and  pretend 
to  be  interested  bystanders,  old  gaffers  wag 
ging  their  beards  and  quoting  the  book  of 
Proverbs.  The  transition  from  one  mood 
to  the  other  is  done  in  a  stroke  of  lightning, 
and  seems  to  be  independent  of  the  music. 
That  is,  it  seems  to  make  no  difference,  so 
long  as  the  musical  schemes  are  filled  out, 
whether  the  ladies  are  singing,  "On  with  the 
dance,  let  joy  be  unconfmed!"  or,  "True 
wisdom  differs  from  sophistry,  and  consists 
in  avoiding  subjects  that  are  beyond  mortal 
comprehension."  All  such  discrepancies 
would,  no  doubt,  have  been  explained  if  we 
possessed  the  music;  but  the  music  is  lost. 
It  seems,  at  any  rate,  certain  that  the  grand 
public  was  not  expected  to  understand  the 
word-for-word  meaning  of  choruses;  hence 
their  license  to  be  obscure.  We  get  the  same 
impression  from  the  gibes  of  Aristophanes, 
whose  ridicule  of  the  pompous  obscurity  of 
^Eschylus  makes  us  suspect  that  the  audi 
ences  could  not  follow  the  grammar  in  the 
lofty  parts  of  tragedy.  They  accepted  the 
drum- roll  of  horror,  and  understood  the 

C78] 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

larger  grammar  of  tragedy,  much  as  we  are 
now  forced  to  do  in  reading  the  plays. 

It  would  seem  that  by  following  the  tech 
nique  of  tragedy,  and  by  giving  no  thought 
to  small  absurdities,  Euripides  got  a  dou 
ble  effect  out  of  his  Maenads,  and  no  one 
observed  that  anything  was  wrong.  In  one 
place  he  resorts  to  a  dramatic  device,  which 
was  perhaps  well  known  in  his  day, — 
namely,  the  "conversion"  of  a  bystander. 
After  the  First  Messenger  has  given  the 
great  description  of  Dionysus'  doings  in  the 
mountains,  the  Chorus,  or  one  of  them,  with 
overpowering  yet  controlled  emotion,  steps 
forward  and  says,  "I  tremble  to  speak  free 
words  in  the  presence  of  my  king;  yet  nev 
ertheless  be  it  said :  Dionysus  is  no  less  a 
god  than  the  greatest  of  them !"  This  refer 
ence  to  the  duty  of  a  subject  is  probably 
copied  from  a  case  where  the  Chorus  was 
made  up  of  local  bystanders.  In  the  mouth 
of  a  Maenad  the  proclamation  is  logically 
ridiculous;  yet  so  strange  are  the  laws  of 
what  "goes"  on  the  stage  that  it  may  have 
been  effective  even  here. 

Some  of  the  choruses  in  the  Bacchantes 
are  miracles  of  poetic  beauty,  of  savage  pas 
sion,  of  liquid  power.  It  is  hard  to  say 
exactly  what  they  are,  but  they  are  wronder- 

[793 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ful.  And  behind  all  there  gleams  from  the 
whole  play  a  sophistication  as  deep  as  the 
^gean.  We  observe  it  in  little  things,  in 
points  scored  during  the  thrust  and  parry 
of  argument,  in  the  drawing-room  tone  of 
the  whole  discussion,  and  in  a  feeling  as  of  a 
compte  rendu — quod  erat  demonstrandum 
— at  the  end,  where  Dionysus  lowers  his 
rapier  and  bows  to  the  public  like  a  toreador. 

Aga.     O  Dionysus!  we  have  sinned;  thy 

pardon  we  implore. 
Dlo.    Too  late  have  ye  learned  to  know  me ; 

ye  knew  me  not  at  the  proper  time. 
Aga.    We  recognise  our  error ;  but  thou  art 

too  revengeful. 
Dio.    Yea,  for  I,  though  a  god,  was  slighted 

by  you. 
Aga.     Gods  should  not  let  their  passions 

sink  to  man's  level. 
Dio.    Long  ago  my  father  Zeus  ordained  it 

thus. 
Aga.     Alas!  my  aged  sire,   our  doom  is 

fixed ;  'tis  woeful  exile. 
Dio.    Why  then  delay  the  inevitable? 

Euripides  has  put  the  legend  into  the 
frame  very  simply.  He  merely  assumes  that 
Dionysus  is  in  the  right.  Dionysus  was 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

justly  offended :  it  was  impiety  not  to  recog 
nise  him.  The  proof  of  this  is  in  the  outcome. 
It  is  the  old  motif:  defiance  of  deity  pun 
ished  by  madness.  But  in  the  treatment  the 
horrors  are  worked  up  so  venge fully,  and 
the  god  becomes  so  vindictive,  that  there  is 
danger  lest  the  whole  thing  nay  appear  to 
be  a  travesty  on  religion.  Even  in  Greek 
times  the  character  of  a  god  was  supposed  to 
bear  some  relation  to  natural  goodness.  It 
would  not  do  to  make  him  out  too  unjust. 

The  Bacchantes  strains  one's  sense  of  jus 
tice,  but  arouses  admiration  for  the  way  in 
which  Euripides  has  worked  the  time-hon 
oured  machinery  of  the  drama  to  new 
effects.  By  one  more  turn  of  the  screw  he 
has  got  a  new  situation, — yet  an  old  one. 
Perhaps  people  may  think  he  is  using  this 
machinery  irreverently,  and  intends  to 
throw  a  light  backward  upon  the  whole 
structure  of  Olympus.  If  ever  there  was  a 
play  calculated  to  confuse  the  sense  of  right 
and  wrong,  it  is  the  Bacchantes.  Yet  it  is 
all  legitimate.  He  has  not  transgressed :  his 
mouth  is  full  of  piety;  he  is  a  conservative. 
Some  people  even  regard  the  Bacchantes  as 
Euripides'  recantation,  a  sort  of  apology  for 
earlier  free-thinking,  a  profession  of  faith. 
The  trouble  with  this  theory  is  that  the  mat- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ter  is  a  little  overdone:  the  cure  is  worse 
than  the  disease.  One  suspects  that  a  caus 
tic  wit  may  somewhere  lurk  concealed 
beneath  the  new  pietism  of  the  old-time 
sceptic.  Is  he  laughing  at  his  enemies,  and 
will  they  find  it  out  and  punish  him  in  the 
end?  Such  thoughts  hover  in  the  mind  of 
the  reader  of  the  Bacchantes.,  and  may  have 
arisen  in  the  mind  of  him  that  wrote  it. 
Euripides  may  have  distrusted  the  play.  At 
any  rate,  the  fact  remains  that  he  did  not 
publish  it  in  his  lifetime. 

Heresy  in  Greek  times  seems  to  have  be 
come  identified  with  "reason."  There  was 
no  dogma  in  the  Greek  religion,  so  that  when 
clever  and  sceptical  persons  began  to  think 
and  to  talk,  nothing  very  definite  could  be 
urged  against  them,  except  that  they  were 
too  clever  by  half,  and  had  better  shut  up  or 
they  would  get  into  trouble.  This  situation 
made  life  at  Athens  more  uncertain  than  if 
there  had  existed  a  well-organised  inquisi 
tion.  Heresy  trials  have  always  been  a  kind 
of  epidemic.  In  one  year  they  are  in  the  air 
and  infect  politics ;  in  another,  not.  If  there 
be  no  dogma  and  no  religious  tribunals,  the 
free-thinker  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  mob. 
The  French  Revolution  shows  the  practical 
dangers  which  arise  when  the  vague  "sound- 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

ness"  of  a  man's  opinions  begins  to  be  ques 
tioned  by  a  popular  assembly.  The  execu 
tion  of  Socrates  occurred  five  years  after 
Euripides'  death. 

The  expressions  of  conservatism  in  the 
Bacchantes  are  tightened  to  an  unendurable 
rigidity.  They  do  not  solace,  but  torment. 
This  is  part  of  the  slight  overscrewing 
which  is  apparent  in  other  members  of  the 
play.  The  older  Greek  dramas  had  depicted 
a  hero  while  he  was  being  maddened  by  the 
gods, — the  gods,  of  course,  remaining  un 
seen.  Euripides  brings  the  god  on  the  stage 
and  uses  the  maddcncr,  not  the  maddened, 
as  his  protagonist.  In  doing  so  he  gives  a 
brilliant  picture  of  a  demon,  calls  him  a  god, 
and  then  stands,  like  Torquemada,  proclaim 
ing  the  sanctity  of  the  faith :  he  is  ready  to 
die  for  it.  All  this  makes  a  very  remarkable 
play,  and  one  which  has  puzzled  the  elect. 
The  play  is  undoubtedly  a  great  jcu  d' esprit, 
—one  of  the  greatest, — but  it  is  a  jcu 
d' esprit  only  by  accident;  it  is,  primarily, 
merely  a  play.  Euripides  arrived  at  these 
remarkable  effects  by  following  out  aesthetic 
laws  and  by  developing  well-established 
principles.  The  moral  and  theological  bear 
ings  of  his  work  may  even  have  surprised 
or  a  little  disconcerted  the  author  himself. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

As  a  monument  of  the  Greek  Genius  the 
Bacchantes  is  more  instructive  than  if  it  be 
longed  to  the  unapproachable  class, — to 
those  masterpieces  of  Art  which  defy  criti 
cism.  The  work  is  decadent.  It  would  be 
an  overstatement  to  say  that  the  Bacchantes 
is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  Greek  trag 
edy.  It  is  merely  a  great  work  of  art,  in 
which  the  intentions  are  a  little  more  ac 
centuated,  the  nuances  a  little  more  pro 
nounced,  than  the  greatest  period  would 
have  permitted.  It  represents  a  decline  in 
art,  an  overstimulation,  a  wringing  of  the 
emotions  such  as  audiences  seem  to  require 
after  they  have  begun  to  weary  of  the  calm 
est  and  greatest  kinds  of  art.  The  sculpture 
of  Praxiteles,  and  Greek  sculpture  just  after 
Praxiteles'  time,  betray  the  same  subtle 
overaccentuation,  the  same  mordant  charm 
and  power  to  draw  blood,  that  Euripides 
possessed  on  the  stage.  The  artists  of  this 
epoch  know  their  trade  almost  too  well. 
There  is  a  little  virtuosity  in  Euripides, 
which  certain  natures  have  always  resented, 
both  in  ancient  and  in  modern  times. 

The  highly  specialised  character  of  Greek 
drama  may  be  seen  by  examining  any  com 
plete  play.  The  field  of  idea  was  small,  as 
we  know ;  and  the  mode  and  process  of  pres- 

£843 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

entation  were  categorical.  Certain  "feat 
ures"  followed  each  other  on  the  stage. 
There  was,  for  instance,  the  prologue ;  there 
was  the  word-hacking,  line-for-line  dia 
logue,  the  recitation  by  messengers,  the 
antiphony  of  soloist  and  Chorus,  the  anapaes 
tic  passages,  the  dactylic  passages,  etc. 
There  was  the  ironical  scene  in  which  every 
word  was  shadowed  by  a  menacing  sec 
ondary  meaning.  Each  of  these  matters 
was  governed  by  rule,  and  had  an  interest 
and  a  tradition  of  its  own.  The  choruses 
were  as  complex  as  a  ritual,  provided  at 
enormous  expense  by  private  munificence, 
and  criticised  with  learning  and  rigour  by 
the  connoisseurs. 

The  Greek  national  life  was  in  some  sort 
reflected  in  this  great  mirror,  the  theatre. 
Down  in  the  middle  of  the  auditorium 
stands  the  Chorus,  representing  the  people 
at  large.  On  the  stage  move  the  myths,  to 
wit,  Greek  Education.  The  irradiations  of 
wit  and  cynicism,  of  piety  and  enthusiasm, 
of  national  feeling  and  local  politics,  flash 
through  the  amphitheatre  as  from  a  great 
reflector,  and  we  who  step  back  into  it,  even 
in  imagination  or  for  a  moment,  are 
strangely  played  upon  by  natural  force. 
The  whole  Greek  mind  is  here,— one  deliver- 
C851 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ance  of  the  whole  mind,  one  form  of  its 
crystallisation.  In  the  Bacchantes  we  can 
see  the  machinery  a  little  too  plainly.  The 
plot  is  a  little  too  evident,  the  members  of 
the  drama  are  a  little  too  well  articulated, 
the  irony  too  continuous.  The  Maenads  are 
too  interesting, — one  feels  that  their  head 
dresses  have  been  made  by  an  expensive  mil 
liner,  and  copied  from  a  tomb  in  Thrace. 
Dionysus  is  a  model  of  loveliness,  but 
decadent.  Observe  his  love-lock  and  his 
walk.  The  recitations  of  the  messengers  are 
beautifully  "mounted"  by  words  of  prepara 
tion,  but  mounted  ever  so  little  too  high. 
The  text  of  them  gives  a  glance  at  the  pit 
and  says,  "Watch  me  do  this !"  At  the  end 
of  the  Second  Messenger's  speech,  where 
the  reciter  crouches  and  slinks  off  the  stage 
rather  than  meet  Agave  (whose  dreadful 
affliction  he  has  been  describing,  and  who  is 
to  enter  behind  him),  we  feel  that  the  actor 
has  scored  a  success.  There  is  something 
about  all  of  it  that  reminds  us  of  the  art  of 
Louis  XIV.  I  am  saying  this  not  so  much 
in  order  to  disparage  Euripides  as  to  throw 
light  upon  the  greater  work  behind  Eu 
ripides,  and  which,  by  reason  of  its  perfec 
tion,  we  cannot  criticise.  These  defects  of 
Euripides  seem  to  give  a  cue  to  the  Greek 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

mind.  The  cue  is  sophistication.  The 
Greek  temple  is  scarcely  more  conventional 
than  the  Greek  play.  Every  part  has  its 
function.  "So  such  things  should  be,"  says 
the  Athenian.  Any  other  disposition  seemed 
to  him  to  be  ugly.  What  has  been  found  to 
go  well  on  the  stage  must  be  put  on  the 
stage.  There  were  plenty  of  dramatic 
themes  which  he  never  discovered,  just  as 
there  are  other  forms  of  architecture  which 
in  Greek  hands  might  have  rivalled  the  tem 
ple.  But  the  Greek  mind  turns  away  from 
experiments.  The  Greek  seeks  for  such 
solutions  of  things  as  are  conformable  to 
his  climate,  his  surroundings,  his  civic  life, 
his  sport,  his  conversation  and  humour.  He 
has  no  imagination  for  things  outside  of  his 
world ;  but  within  the  limits  of  his  world  he 
has  thought  everything  out  with  a  fineness 
of  perception  and  an  accuracy  of  statement 
never  known  before  nor  since. 

There  is  one  region  of  thought  which  the 
modern  and  the  Greek  mind  have  in  com 
mon, — namely,  the  world  of  aesthetics  and 
of  aesthetic  criticism.  We  cannot  define  this 
world.  We  only  know  one  thing  for  certain 
about  it :  that  it  is  pleasant.  It  is  a  pleasure- 
loving  world,  where  philosophy  is  the  butler 
that  hands  the  tea-things.  When  a  modern 


GREEK  GENIUS 

man  first  walks  into  one  of  Plato's  dialogues, 
or  reads  a  play  of  Sophocles,  he  feels  like  a 
boor  entering  a  palace.  They  are  all  so 
clever,  these  Greek  princes,  and  give  the 
retort  courteous  and  the  quip  modest  with 
out  effort.  They  deal  with  many  ideas 
which  we  think  we  understand,  yet  they 
arrange  them  in  a  way  that  we  never  could 
have  imagined.  They  all  seem  to  be  playing 
a  celestial  game  of  irony.  They  are  like 
Arabian  merchants,  who  talk  by  gestures, 
and  carry  on  mystical  transactions  above  the 
comprehension  of  the  intruding  modern 
mind.  Aristophanes  is  the  greatest  of  them, 
because  he  alone  has  realised  that  the  whole 
business  is  gigantic  buffoonery,  and  that  to 
laugh  is  the  sincerest  thing  in  the  end. 

This  quality  of  irony  is  a  thing  peculiarly 
and  typically  Greek.  It  was  sedulously  cul 
tivated  by  the  Greeks,  and  was  considered  to 
be  a  concomitant  of  intellect.  It  is  found 
even  in  Homer.  Irony  seems  to  consist  in 
the  consciousness  that  the  thing  said  is  not 
the  whole  truth.  The  difference  between 
Aristophanes  and  other  Greek  humourists  is 
that  he  laughs  out,  while  the  rest  merely 
smile  or  gaze  calmly  on  the  sea.  Suppressed 
humour  and  silent  mockery  are  things  which 
hardly  exist  in  the  modern  Anglo-Saxon 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

world,  where  the  club  and  truncheon  are  in 
order  rather  than  the  stiletto  and  the  in 
nuendo.  There  have  always  been  Italian 
poets,  however,  who  possessed  sardonic 
humour,  and  French  writers  with  subtle, 
quiet  irony.  The  whole  tone  of  mind  to 
which  this  kind  of  humour  is  native  belongs 
rather  to  the  Mediterranean  than  to  the 
north  of  Europe.  It  goes  with  less  heart  and 
with  more  wit  than  the  Teuton  possesses. 
In  dealing  with  anything  Greek  one  must 
always  be  ready  for  an  ''aside."  It  may  be 
a  stab,  or  it  may  be  a  mere  gesture,  which 
arouses  the  afterthought  in  one's  mind,— 
"Ah,  that's  what  the  fellow  meant,  is  it?" 
The  Greek  comic  statuettes  have  this  same 
quizzical  humour.  All  these  things,  both 
the  writings  and  the  statues,  make  the  mod 
ern  feel  like  a  barbarian,  because  of  their 
subtlety. 

Greek  art,  nevertheless,  has  always  been 
full  of  significance  to  the  barbarians.  After 
some  converse  with  these  refined  Hellenes 
we  begin  to  benefit  by  their  cultivation. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  Greek  power  of  en 
joyment.  What  other  race  ever  made  en 
joyment  into  a  religion?  At  first  we  are 
shocked  and  unhinged  by  the  idea,  but  soon 
we  begin  to  "respond."  It  makes  us  more 


GREEK  GENIUS 

suave  and  limber  to  think  that  pleasure  is  a 
legitimate  pursuit.  We  soon  learn  to  take 
a  share  in  the  feast,  almost  a  hand  in  the 
game. 

What  the  Greeks  took  up  they  treated 
with  such  logical  completeness  as  to  impart 
a  symbolic  character  to  the  product.  If  you 
erect  a  perfect  sphere  you  erect  a  symbol; 
and  very  likely  other  people  will  see  in  it 
intimations  of  philosophy.  If  a  gymnast 
throws  a  disc  with  absolute  grace,  someone 
in  the  amphitheatre  is  pretty  sure  to  think 
him  a  hero.  This  very  play,  the  Bacchantes, 
by  reason  of  its  organic,  logical  perfection, 
has  become  a  parable  to  many  people.  Who 
shall  limit  the  meanings  of  a  Greek  poet,  or 
decree  what  visions  men  shall  have  in  gazing 
into  a  crystal  ?  Happy  those  who  have  them ! 

The  Bacchantes  is  like  an  old,  abandoned 
farm-wagon  which  lies  on  its  back  in  the 
woods  with  its  wheels  in  the  air,  and  which 
from  time  to  time  is  discovered  by  small  par 
ties  of  savage  boys.  The  boys  say :  "Come ! 
Let  us  pretend  that  this  is  a  fire-engine.  See 
how  the  wheels  turn  about!  Run,  run! 
Fire,  fire!"  The  wheels  go  round,  and  the 
boys  shout  with  sincere  joy.  And  yet  the 
machine  is  not  a  fire-engine,  but  a  wagon; 
and  the  Bacchantes  is  not  an  allegorical 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

fable,   but   a   play,— the   fiercest   play   ever 
written. 

To  return  to  the  drama.  The  sophistica 
tion  of  the  Greek  mind  is  what  stimulates 
the  modern.  The  Greek  could  count  up  to 
one  hundred  in  art ;  we  only  to  seventy-five. 
We  misinterpret  him  through  crediting1  that 
to  emotion  which  is  merely  due  to  conven 
tion.  For  instance,  the  hideous  cruelty  of 
Greek  tragedy  is  largely  conventional,  plas 
tic,  contrapuntal.  It  was  in  following  this 
inner  logic  that  the  audience  found  pleasure, 
somewhat  as  we  find  pleasure  at  a  modern 
concert  in  following  the  inner  logic  of  a 
very  complex  sonata.  There  are  no  facts 
in  music,  and  so  in  Greek  tragedy  there  are 
no  facts.  It  is  all  an  intellectual  schema,  or 
progression  of  ideas,  built  up  and  led  on 
towards  a  climax.  All  the  externals  of  the 
Greek  Drama  are  intentionally  and  obviously 
unreal.  They  must  operate  only  as  hints  to 
the  imagination ;  otherwise  the  illusion  will 
be  destroyed.  If  you  tack  a  real  bow-knot 
upon  the  picture  of  a  child,  you  will  destroy 
the  life  of  the  picture.  So,  on  the  Greek 
stage  all  realism  is  avoided.  For  instance, 
when  Agave  comes  upon  the  scene  with  the 
head  of  her  son  in  her  arms,  she  is  carrying 
a  papier-mache  image  of  a  head,  much  above 


GREEK  GENIUS 

life-size,  and  painted  with  gore.  The  body 
of  Pentheus  consists  of  fragments  which  are 
brought  upon  the  stage  immediately  after 
wards.  The  only  proper  stage  handling  of 
such  scenes  as  this,  which  were  not  unusual 
in  Greek  tragedy,  is  the  marionette  system : 
"Here  is  Charlemagne,  here  is  the  head  of 
the  Soldan,"  etc.  Thus  alone  can  the  story 
be  kept  upon  its  true  stage  in  the  mind.  If 
you  tell  a  bloody  history  to  a  child,  and  keep 
the  setting  unreal,  it  makes  no  difference 
what  atrocities  the  plot  involves.  In  Greece 
the  stage  language  (i.e.,  the  verse- forms, 
the  dresses,  and  the  acting)  was  provided 
by  custom,  and  the  playwright  was  expected 
to  stick  at  nothing  in  the  use  of  them.  They 
are  a  kind  of  great  alphabet  which  must  be 
accepted  in  toto. 

There  is  a  wide-spread  belief  that  the 
Greeks  avoided  the  horrible.  This  is,  per 
haps,  founded  on  Horace's  remark  that 
Medea  does  not  slaughter  her  children  be 
fore  the  public.  In  any  event,  the  belief 
seems  not  to  correspond  with  the  facts.  The 
Greeks  seem  to  adopt  any  dramatic  device 
that  will  arouse  horror  most  effectually. 
Now  it  is  infinitely  more  effective  to  have 
Medea's  children  slain  by  their  mother's 
hand  just  behind  the  scenes,  where  their 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

unavailing  cries  can  be  heard  by  the  au 
dience,  than  to  have  her  kill  them  before  the 
footlights.  So,  also,  in  the  slaughter  of 
Agamemnon,  the  prolonged  deliberation  of 
the  Chorus — who  confer  as  to  whether  or 
not  it  is  their  duty  to  do  anything  about  the 
murder,  vying  with  one  another  in  the  sense 
lessness  and  incompetence  of  their  sugges 
tions,  while  the  howls  of  Agamemnon  fill 
the  theatre — is  more  horrible  than  any  mur 
der  on  the  stage  could  possibly  have  been 
made.  So,  too,  in  Euripides'  Orestes,  after 
Orestes  and  Pylades  have  entered  the  palace 
for  the  purpose  of  murdering  Helen,  there 
is  an  awe-striking  moment  when  the  Chorus 
hears  someone  coming  down  the  path,  and 
fears  lest  the  whole  dreadful  plot  may  fail. 
The  cries  of  Helen  have  been  heard,  but  are 
not  decisive.  Neither  the  Chorus  nor  the 
audience  knows  just  what  is  happening,  and 
this  uncertainty  intensifies  the  horror.  There 
are  moments  in  Macbeth  where  the  same 
situation  is  staged  by  almost  the  same  meth 
ods.  These  breathless  pauses  in  tragedy  are 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  unseen  is  more  dread 
ful  than  the  seen. 

But  there  is  an  independent  reason  for  the 
avoidance  of  death  itself  on  the  Greek  stage. 
If  personages  were  not  permitted  to  die 


GREEK  GENIUS 

there,  it  is  because  there  was  no  way  of  get 
ting  rid  of  the  bodies.  The  slain  could  not 
get  up  and  walk  off,  or  be  carried  off,  with 
out  introducing  a  ridiculous  element.  Alces- 
tis  is  allowed  to  die  on  the  stage  because  the 
circumstances  make  it  possible  to  remove 
her  body  dramatically. 

How  ineffectual  in  appearance  are  kill 
ings  in  real  life!  A  man  is  shot,  or  struck 
by  a  train,  or  jumps  from  a  burning  build 
ing.  It  is  all  over  in  a  moment ;  it  is  terne, 
it  is  voiceless,  it  is  real.  The  Greek  stage 
avoids  horrors  of  this  kind  because  they  are 
not  dramatically  useful;  but  the  Greek  stage 
has  horrors  of  its  own  that  are  worse  than 
they. 

The  Elizabethan  drama,  which  had  no 
special  laws  or  conventions,  but  tried  every 
thing,  used  sometimes  to  indulge  in  realistic 
horrors.  Such  things,  however,  proved  to 
be  disgusting  rather  than  horrible.  They 
reveal  in  their  authors  an  imperfect  ac 
quaintance  with  dramatic  law.  If  you  set 
upon  the  stage  Thyestes  eating  a  pie  made 
of  his  own  children's  flesh,  and  if  you  make 
him  fall  backward  in  convulsions  when  he 
learns  of  what  he  has  done,  you  can  never 
make  the  scene  as  awful  as  it  becomes 
through  the  horror  of  a  third  party  who 
C943 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

gives  an  account  of  it.  The  emotion  must 
be  instrumental.  All  the  inner  resonance  of 
the  drama  will  be  interrupted  by  any  appeal 
that  comes  from  realism.  Everything  that 
happens  on  the  stage  must  be  taken  up  into 
the  whirling  symphony  of  the  whole  per 
formance,  the  value  and  force  of  each  ele 
ment  being  assigned  to  it  by  the  poet. 


VI 

PROFESSOR  GILBERT   MURRAY  — OXFORD 

PROFESSOR  GILBERT  MURRAY  is 

-L  the  best  known  scholar  in  the  British 
Empire,  and  is  the  most  widely  beloved 
scholar  of  the  present  epoch.  Whatever  be 
his  claims  to  learning  as  weighed  in  the 
Plutonic  haunts  of  technical  work  (of 
which  the  nether  gods  alone  are  cognisant), 
his  enormous  literacy  and  his  easy  command 
over  the  whole  book-world  appear  like  a 
miracle  to  the  general  reader.  Beneath 
the  authority  of  his  official  post  and  the 
necromancy  of  his  erudition  walks  a  literary 
talent  of  a  very  high  order.  His  suavity,  his 
personal  charm,  his  real  humility,  his  hu 
mour,  his  freedom  from  dogmatism,  the 
Orpheus-like  serenity  with  \vhich  he  walks 
through  the  Plutonic  regions,  illuminating 
scholarship  as  he  goes  with  the  interest  of  a 
fairy-tale,  make  him  the  adored  friend  of 
every  reader.  The  Rise  of  the  Greek  Epic 
seems  to  be  the  book  which  modern  educa- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

tion  was  waiting  for,  the  book  that  should 
recover  to  literature  the  lost  territory  which 
the  whirlpools  of  archaeology  and  etymology 
had  eaten  away,  and  should  reinstate  Hu 
manism  as  the  Regent  of  Learning. 

This  book,  The  Rise  of  the  Greek  Epic,  is 
a  review  of  modern  speculation  as  to  the 
form  of  Homer's  poems.  Its  main  thesis 
is  simple,  and  its  methods  are  the  critical  and 
verifiable  methods  of  modern  research.  Yet 
no  one  can  read  the  book  without  having  his 
conceptions  enlarged,  not  only  as  touching 
Greek  literature,  but  as  touching  the  whole 
history  of  literary  expression. 

The  province  of  criticism  is,  however,  but 
one  field  of  Professor  Murray's  activity. 
There  are  two  Murrays,  and  they  bear  a 
somewhat  paradoxical  relation  to  each 
other.  There  is  Murray  the  critical  scholar, 
whose  work  has  an  imaginative,  stimulating 
value  to  the  student  of  Greek;  and  there  is 
Murray  the  author  of  poetic  translations, 
chiefly  of  Euripides,  whose  work  is  essen 
tially  non-critical,  even  anti-critical,  and 
who  fulfils  to  the  student  of  Greek  literature 
the  office  of  an  ignis  fatuus. 

If  in  the  following  paper  a  protest  is 
made  against  the  last  mentioned  side  of 
Murray's  influence,  this  is  because  of  the 
C98] 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

magnitude  of  his  influence,  and  because  of 
the  subtlety  of  the  questions  involved,  which 
make  sharp  speaking  necessary  to  clearness. 
Murray  the  critic  is  the  genial  scholar 
named  above.  In  The  Rise  of  the  Greek 
Epic  he  enters  the  field  of  Homeric  criti 
cism.  Now  the  Homeric  Question  during 
the  last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  became 
a  great  bazaar :  it  is  like  a  covered  market  a 
hundred  yards  long, — a  halle, — filled  with 
furiously  active  tailors  and  sewers  of  patch 
work.  They  sit  upon  piles  of  bagging,  each 
in  his  booth  heaped  with  bales  of  work. 
Slaves  stagger  to  and  fro  under  new  and 
miscellaneous  plunder  which  the  archaeolo 
gists  are  momently  consigning  to  the  bazaar 
from  the  quarried  ruins  of  every  Mediter 
ranean  shore.  Bearded  men  wrangle,  and 
dim-eyed  enthusiasts  attack  their  theses. 
They  rip  and  sew,  sift  and  assay,  they  heap 
and  scatter  like  madmen.  The  general 
reader  looks  upon  the  scene  in  smiles  and  in 
despair.  Then  Murray  enters  and  begins 
talking  in  a  casual  way  about  Homer.  He 
is  very  gentle.  Anyone  can  understand 
what  he  says.  He  is  explaining  what  some 
of  the  fury  is  about.  He  comes  from  the 
open  air  and  brings  the  daylight  with  him. 
He  is  as  likely  to  illustrate  a  point  with 
r.99: 


GREEK  GENIUS 

something  that  he  saw  in  the  street  five  min 
utes  before  as  with  a  line  from  the  Pen 
tateuch.  He  is  going  to  show  you  what  sort 
of  a  thing  literature  was  in  its  beginnings. 
He  pauses  over  a  pile  of  manuscripts  as  he 
enters,  picks  up  one,  and  shows  its  drift.  A 
slave  passes  with  an  armful  of  broken  crock 
ery.  He  begs  pardon  of  the  slave,  borrows 
a  potsherd  for  a  moment,  and  illustrates  his 
idea  with  it;  returns  it,  and  passes  on.  We 
follow  him  through  the  emporium,  and  in 
an  hour  or  two  we  come  to  understand 
something  about  the  Homeric  pandemo 
nium.  We  know  not  how  much  is  Murray's 
own,  or  to  what  extent  he  is  an  interpreter 
of  others;  but  before  he  has  finished  his 
rounds  we  become  convinced  that  his  gen 
eral  view  must  be  true.  Something  of  the 
sort  is  indubitably  the  true  view.  That  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  are  in  their  living  merits 
a  part  of  the  great  Attic  period  in  Greek 
literature ;  that  they  are  archaic  and  artificial 
in  their  language ;  that,  in  the  form  in  which 
we  know  them,  they  represent  the  last  recen 
sion  of  a  body  of  myth  which  is  hundreds  of 
years  old;  that  no  categorical  answer  is  to 
be  looked  for  as  to  any  of  the  detailed  ques 
tions  about  their  origin,— these  things  we 
believe  and  see  to  be  true  after  reading  the 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

book,  in  the  same  manner  as  if  we  had  dis 
covered  them  for  ourselves.  And  this  is 
what  Murray  desires  to  make  us  perceive. 

The  secret  of  Murray's  power  seems  to 
lie  in  the  truth  that  illustration  is  more  tell 
ing  than  argument.  His  art  keeps  his  thesis 
afloat  and  throws  the  glamour  of  a  fairy 
tale  upon  the  dreadful  citations.  You  are 
ever  in  a  magic  sea  strewn  with  argosies  of 
Oriental  plunder.  Meanwhile,  Gilbert  Mur 
ray  himself  is  before  you,  the  man  of  the 
afternoon  chat,  as  modern  and  familiar  a 
figure  as  London  can  show.  Here  is  the 
triumph  of  British  cultivation.  There  is  a 
good  sense  and  a  good  humour  about  the 
book,  a  non-dogmatic  social  element.  Here 
is  seen  the  same  bonhomie  and  avoidance  of 
extremes  which  are  at  the  bottom  of  Eng 
land's  political  greatness. 

The  second  Murray— namely,  the  versifier 
and  translator  of  Euripides — must  now  be 
considered.  He  is  an  English  poet  of  a  very 
definite  literary  ancestry.  He  belongs  to  the 
old  Neo-Hellenic  Oxford  teaching, — one 
might  almost  call  it  a  school  of  thought.  He 
is  a  scion  of  that  traditional  English  scholar 
ship  of  which  Matthew  Arnold  and  Swin 
burne  are  examples.  This  tradition  is  wider 
than  a  mere  school  of  poetry :  it  is  a  caste  of 


GREEK  GENIUS 

thought,  and  a  mode  of  aesthetic,  quasi- 
moral  feeling. 

Let  the  reader  recall  Mallock's  New  Re 
public,  which  remains  as  the  best  monument 
of  a  distinct  historic  eddy  in  the  thought 
and  influence  of  Oxford.  This  little  swirl 
was  not  more  than  an  eddy:  it  never  com 
prehended  the  whole  of  Oxford  even  in  its 
day  of  plenitude. 

Mallock  gently  ridiculed  the  poses  of  this 
Christian-Pagan  University  Humanism  in 
his  famous  mock-sermon,  which  was  sup 
posed  to  represent  Jowett's  manner.  In 
another  place  he  makes  Jowett  say :  "Chris 
tianity  includes  all  other  religions,  even  any 
honest  denial  of  itself." 

In  this  phrase  of  Mallock's  we  have  the 
philosophic  crux  of  the  whole  matter.  Gil 
bert  Murray  the  poet  is  an  aftermath  of  this 
Victorian  culture,  and  in  his  mouth  are  the 
charming  accents  of  all  that  old-fashioned, 
tinted  cultivation.  This  cultivation  is  pre 
cious,  mannered,  Euphuistic.  If  accepted 
as  part  of  the  drawing-room,  where  the 
lights  are  shaded,  this  music  is  not  un- 
pleasing.  There  is  a  sordino  on  every 
instrument,  and  none  but  the  sweetest  reso 
lutions  are  permitted.  But  when  daylight 
meets  the  page  and  brings  this  school  of 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

musing  into  competition  with  open-air  liter 
ature,  its  weaknesses  are  revealed.  It  is  all 
candy.  It  belongs,  indeed,  to  that  class  of 
artificial  work,  not  without  value,  of  which 
many  epochs,  including  the  twelfth  century 
and  the  Renaissance,  have  provided  exam 
ples.  Walter  Pater's  books  are  of  the  same 
school.  We  must  remember  the  Cortegiano 
in  reading  them.  There  is  only  one  point  of 
view  from  which  Murray's  translations  can 
arouse  antagonism,  or  even  just  reproba 
tion, — namely,  when  they  are  used  as  an 
introduction  to  Greek  literature. 

Gilbert  Murray  the  poet  has  a  note,  a 
charm,  a  lyric  gift  of  his  own.  The  follow 
ing  verses  from  the  Hippolytus  are  an  ex 
ample  of  his  genius.  The  whole  translation 
is  very  nearly  equal  to  them  in  sweetness. 
They  may  serve  to  remind  the  reader  of  this 
author's  merits : 

"Could  I  take  me  to  some  cavern  for  mine 

hiding, 
In  the  hilltops  where  the  sun  scarce 

hath  trod ; 
Or  a  cloud  make  the  home  of  mine 

abiding, 

As  a  bird  among  the  bird-droves  of 
God! 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Could  I  wing  me  to  my  rest  amid  the 

roar 

Of  the  deep  Adriatic  on  the  shore, 
Where  the  waters  of  Eridanus  are  clear, 
And  Phaeton's  sad  sisters  by  his  grave 
Weep  into  the  river,  and  each  tear 

Gleams,  a  drop  of  amber,  in  the  wave : 

To  the  strand  of  the  daughters  of  the 

Sunset, 
The  Apple-tree,  the  singing  and  the 

gold; 
Where  the  mariner  must  stay  him  from 

his  onset, 

And  the  red  wave  is  tranquil  as  of  old; 
Yea,  beyond  that  Pillar  of  the  End 
That  Atlas  guardeth,  would  I  wend  ; 
Where  a  voice  of  living  waters  never 

ceaseth 

In  God's  quiet  garden  by  the  sea, 
And  Earth,  the  ancient  life-giver,  in- 

creaseth 
Joy  among  the  meadows,  like  a  tree." 

This  is  very  charming,  but  not  very 
Greek.  There  is,  in  spite  of  its  merits,  a 
monotony  of  feeling  about  this  and  other 
Hellenising  British  poetry,  and  a  certain 
preoccupation  with  God,  which  are  not 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

found  in  Greek.  There  is  generally  a  sense 
of  variety  in  Greek  poetry  and  a  substratum 
of  wit  or  shrewdness.  The  plaintive  note 
and  the  highly  moral  note,  which  the  British 
Victorian  School  so  much  affects,  do  occur 
now  and  then  in  Greek,  but  they  do  not 
predominate.  Of  course  all  mythology 
deals  with  gods ;  and  by  translating  every 
reference  to  Olympus  with  a  big  G,  this 
school  has  produced  some  very  interesting 
literary  flavours.  Religion  is  their  pet 
thought.  They  are  not  satisfied  unless  they 
have  stitched  Greek  religion  (whatever  it 
was)  and  English  religion  (whatever  it 
ought  to  be)  into  some  sort  of  harmony.  In 
their  works  the  Bible  is  subtly  alluded  to 
through  the  use  of  biblical  words,  and 
Dionysus  and  Christ  are  delicately  jumbled. 
There  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  little  too 
much  gentleness  everywhere  in  the  aesthetic 
literature  of  modern  England,  as  if  a  drop 
of  sweet  oil  had  been  added  to  life.  All  this 
comes  from  a  genuine,  intimately  English, 
ethical  development;  traces  of  it  may  be 
seen  in  Tennyson.  These  English  gentle 
men  are  admirable  fellows,  and  the  world  is 
better  and  richer  for  them  in  many  ways. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  remain  in  the  state  of 
mind  in  which  they  live  and  to  render  the 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Greek  drama,  because  their  vehicle  is  one 
which  transmutes  everything  into  falsetto 
sentiment. 

The  Greek  genius  is  so  different  from  the 
modern  English  genius  that  the  two  cannot 
understand  each  other.  How  shall  we  come 
to  see  this  clearly?  The  matter  is  difficult 
in  the  extreme  because  we  are  all  soaked  in 
modern  feeling,  and  in  America  we  are  all 
drenched  in  British  influence.  The  desire  of 
Britain  to  annex  ancient  Greece,  the  deep- 
felt  need  that  the  English  writers  and  poets 
of  the  nineteenth  century  have  shown  to  edge 
and  nudge  nearer  to  Greek  feeling,  is  fa 
miliar  to  all  of  us.  Browning  expresses  his 
Hellenic  longings  by  paraphrasing  Greek 
myths ;  Swinburne,  by  his  hymeneal  strains ; 
Matthew  Arnold,  by  sweetness  and  light; 
Gilbert  Murray,  by  sweetness  and  pathos; 
and  all  through  the  divine  right  of  Victorian 
expansion. 

It  has  been  a  profoundly  unconscious 
development  in  all  of  these  men.  They  have 
instinctively  and  innocently  attached  their 
views  of  life  to  Euripides  and  to  the  other 
great  Attic  writers.  In  doing  so  they  have 
developed  a  whole  artificial  language  of  their 
own,  as  conventional  as  the  language  of 
Homer.  And,  curiously  enough,  there  is  not 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

to  be  found  in  the  whole  length  and  breadth 
of  letters  a  dialect  more  unlike  the  Greek 
than  the  jargoning  of  this  especial  school  of 
warblers.  The  reason  is  that  the  exquisite 
music  of  the  fraternity  has  set  a  gold  cage 
about  each  singer.  The  lyric  laws  of  this 
tradition  exclude  open-air  sounds,  and  all 
the  world  is  curtained  off  in  order  to  seclude 
a  particular  kind  of  throb. 

The  tyranny  of  literary  convention  is 
known  to  every  writer.  If  he  will  translate 
Homer  into  Shakespearian  blank  verse,  he 
must  throw  in  a  little  Shakespearian  bom 
bast,  or  the  verse  will  balk  like  an  underfed 
horse.  If  he  will  put  Horace  into  the  Spen 
serian  stanza,  he  must  dose  it  somewhat 
with  Elizabethan  ornament.  Indeed,  he 
cannot  help  doing  so.  The  excessive  ar 
tificiality  of  the  ancestral  school  of  verse  to 
which  Murray  belongs,  and  of  which  he  is 
a  sincere  exponent,  could  not  help  dyeing 
Murray's  paraphrases  of  Greek  texts  in  the 
blood  of  Shelley.  "What  better  tint  could 
he  put  on?"  you  cry.  Yes,  yes;  but  the 
Greek  is  lost. 

Let  us  take  an  example.  It  was  Robert 
Browning  who  first  cast  "God"  into  British 
Victorian  poetry, — "God"  as  a  sort  of  pig 
ment  or  colophon ;  "God"  as  an  exclamation, 


GREEK  GENIUS 

a  parenthesis,  an  adverb,  a  running  com 
ment,  an  exordium,  a  thesis,  and  a  conclu 
sion.  Murray  inherits  this  idiosyncrasy :  he 
has  taken  it  in  with  his  poetic  milk.  One  is 
tempted  to  write  "Browning"  against  many 
a  page  of  Murray's  Euripides. 

So  far  as  religion  is  concerned,  the 
Greeks  do  seem  upon  occasion  to  have  dealt 
with  an  idea  which  is  best  rendered  by  our 
word  "God."  It  is  an  idea  that  does  not 
occur  often  in  Greek,  although  there  is 
hardly  a  page  of  Greek  poetry  without  some 
reference  to  the  unseen  agency  of  spirits, — 
a  god,  some  god,  the  gods,  fate,  chance, 
destiny,  etc.  In  the  older  literal  translations 
of  Greek  poetry  into  English  the  word 
"God"  seems  to  be  avoided  altogether,  and 
"Jove"  is  used  for  "Zeus."  In  the  more 
recent  literal  translations  the  name  of  God 
is  not  altogether  omitted.  For  instance,  in 
Coleridge's  translation  of  Euripides'  Medea, 
the  word  occurs  half  a  dozen  times,  chiefly 
in  phrases  such  as  "God  grant,"  "so  help  me 
God,"  "by  God's  grace,"  etc.  Willamovitz, 
the  great  German  scholar,  uses  the  word 
"Gott,"  so  far  as  I  can  find,  only  twice  in  his 
poetic  version  of  Medea — i.e.,  "Will's  Gott" 
and  "Behiif  Euch  Gott."  In  Murray's 
translation  of  the  same  play  "God"  occurs 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

forty-three  times,  not  counting  "the  god," 
"a  god,"  etc.  Such  dealing  destroys  the 
Greek  atmosphere.  Horace  in  Spenserian 
verse  would  be  Roman  compared  to  this. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  and  very 
mysterious  phenomenon  connected  with 
Murray's  metrical  transcriptions.  They  are 
accompanied  by  prefaces  and  notes  in  the 
style  of  the  Oxfordian  litterateurs  of  forty 
years  ago.  His  verse  vehicle  has  for  the 
nonce  keeled  the  whole  man  over  into 
mawkish  cultivation.  It  is  incredible,  and  a 
paradox  in  psychology,  that  Murray  the 
scholar  should  have  penned  these  notes. 

The  ingenuous  young  student  who  should 
look  into  Euripides  himself  after  reading 
Murray's  translations  and  introductions  to 
the  poet  would  experience  very  much  such 
a  surprise  as  a  boy  does  who  finds  a  snake  in 
a  bird's  nest.  The  two  creatures  have  noth 
ing  to  do  with  each  other,  except  that  under 
certain  circumstances  the  one  devours  the 
other, — that  is  to  say,  the  sceptic  devours 
the  sentimentalist. 

The  purpose  of  the  following  pages  is  to 
protect  that  ingenuous  boy,  to  point  out  some 
extravagances  of  this  intricate  world,  and  to 
prepare  the  good  youth  of  America  for  the 
complications  of  European  cultivation. 
09] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

The  relation  between  Euripides  and  Mur 
ray  is  not  a  thing  that  needs  to  be  treated  in 
extenso^  as,  for  instance,  by  comparing 
everything  that  the  one  has  said  about  the 
other.  The  question  is  one  of  transfusion, 
of  chemical  transformation.  It  can  be 
studied  by  samples  and  piecemeal.  The 
discussion  requires  merely  the  examination 
of  elements  which  never  vary.  For  pur 
poses  of  convenience  I  shall  take  up  Mur 
ray's  translation  of  the  Bacchantes,  because 
that  play  is  in  itself  so  very  remote  from 
British  feeling  that  the  divagations  of  the 
translator  and  commentator  are  brought 
into  picturesque  and  startling  contrast  with 
the  Greek.  The  sentimentalism  of  this 
British  school  when  it  fondles  Greek  intel 
lect  is  like  Agave  with  the  head  of  Pentheus 
in  her  arms. 

To  the  poet  Murray,  Euripides  is  a  mis 
understood  man  who  wrote  his  Bacchantes 
to  express  a  philosophic  faith.  Euripides 
was,  it  appears,  living  in  Macedonia  in  exile 
at  the  time,  and  was  rejoicing  over  his 
escape  from  his  enemies.  In  the  volume 
entitled  Euripides  (Longmans,  Green, 
1912),  Murray,  after  describing  the  cult  of 
Dionysus,  says : 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

"The  Bacchanals  in  this  play  worshipped 
him  [Dionysus]  by  his  many  names  : 

'lacchos,  Bromios,  Lord, 
God  of  God  born' ;  and  all  the  mountain  felt 
And  worshipped  with  them,  and  the  wild 

things  knelt, 

And  ramped  and  gloried,  and  the  wilderness 
Was  filled  with  moving  voices  and  dim 

stress. 

That  is  the  kind  of  god  he  [Euripides]  cele 
brates."     (Introductory  Essay,  p.  Ix.) 

Murray  continues  on  a  later  page : 

"Could  not  the  wise  men  of  Athens  un 
derstand  what  a  child  feels,  what  a  wild 
beast  feels,  what  a  poet  feels,  that  to  live- 
to  live  in  the  presence  of  Nature,  of  Dawn 
and  Sunset,  of  eternal  mysteries  and  discov 
eries  and  wonders — is  in  itself  a  joyous 
thing? 

'  'Love  thou  the  day  and  night/  he  says  in 
another  place.  'It  is  only  so  that  Life  can 
be  made  what  it  really  is,  a  Joy:  by  loving 
not  only  your  neighbour — he  is  so  vivid  an 
element  in  life  that,  unless  you  do  love  him, 
he  will  spoil  all  the  rest! — but  the  actual 


GREEK  GENIUS 

details  and  processes  of  living/  Life  be 
comes  like  the  voyage  of  Dionysus  himself 
over  magic  seas,  or  rather,  perhaps,  like  the 
more  chequered  voyage  of  Shelley's  lovers : 

While  Night 
And  Day,  and  Storm  and  Calm  pursue  their 

flight, 

Our  ministers  across  the  boundless  sea, 
Treading  each  other's  heels  unheededly'  — 

the  alternations  and  pains  being  only  'min 
isters'  to  the  great  composite  joy. 

"It  seemed  to  Euripides,  in  that  favourite 
metaphor  of  his,  which  was  always  a  little 
more  than  a  metaphor,  that  a  God  had  been 
rejected  by  the  world  that  he  came  from. 
Those  haggard,  striving,  suspicious  men, 
full  of  ambition  and  the  pride  of  intellect, 
almost  destitute  of  emotion, — unless  polit 
ical  hatreds  can  be  called  emotion, — were 
hurrying  through  Life  in  the  presence  of 
august  things  which  they  never  recognised, 
of  joy  and  beauty  which  they  never  dreamed 
of.  Thus  it  is  that  'the  world's  wise  are  not 
wise/ 

"...  It  is  a  mysticism  which  includes 
democracy  as  it  includes  the  love  of  your 
neighbour.  They  are  both  necessary  details 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

in  the  inclusive  end.  It  implies  that  trust  in 
the  'simple  man'  which  is  so  characteristic 
of  most  idealists  and  most  reformers.  It 
implies  the  doctrine  of  Equality — a  doctrine 
essentially  religious  and  mystical,  continu 
ally  disproved  in  every  fresh  sense  in  which 
it  can  be  formulated,  and  yet  remaining  one 
of  the  living  faiths  of  men."  (/&._,  p.  Ixiii 
ct  seq.) 

Now  let  the  ingenuous  stripling  from 
Oshkosh  whose  father  has  saved  money  to 
send  him  to  college  in  New  Haven,  and  who 
finds  Murray's  Euripides  on  the  list  of 
books  to  be  read,  try  to  connect  this  ex 
quisite  kissing  of  his  three  fingers  by  an 
Oxford  professor  with  anything  that  can  be 
found  in  the  poetry  of  Euripides,  or  in  any 
other  Greek  thing  whatever.  What  cue  has 
the  boy  to  the  mystery  ?  What  aid  towards 
its  solution  can  he  find  in  the  pages  of  the 
old  Attic  artist,  who  is  more  addicted  to  set 
ting  riddles  than  to  solving  them  ? 

Murray's  state  of  mind  at  such  moments 
cannot  be  reached  by  any  intellectual  appeal. 
No  matter  what  button  is  touched,  the  same 
bell  rings.  "It  is,"  he  says,  "a  dangerous 
and  somewhat  vulgar  course  to  deduce  from 
a  poet's  works  direct  conclusions  about  his 


GREEK  GENIUS 

real  life."  No  sooner  has  he  said  this  than 
he  proceeds  to  deduce  the  most  recondite 
conclusions  as  to  the  poet's  private  life  from 
verses  which  suggest  nothing  personal. 
Euripides,  according  to  Murray,  "felt  like 
a  hunted  animal  escaped  from  its  pursuers, 
like  a  fawn  fled  to  the  forest,  says  one  lyric 
in  which  the  personal  note  is  surely  audible 
as  a  ringing  undertone  (1.  862)  : 

'Oh,  feet  of  a  fawn  to  the  greenwood  fled, 

Alone  in  the  grass  and  the  loveliness, 
Leap  of  the  hunted,  no  more  in  dread'  .  .  . 

"But  there  is  still  a  terror  in  the  distance 
behind  him;  he  must  go  onward  yet,  to 
lonely  regions  where  no  voice  of  either  man 
or  hound  may  reach."  (Ib.,  p.  Ixi.) 

That  leaping  fawn  was  the  call  of  the  wild 
to  Murray.  He  throws  his  principles  of 
criticism  to  the  wind,  because  he  has  seen 
an  opportunity  of  winding  his  own  peculiar 
note  on  his  own  elfin  horn.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  leaping  animals  and  darting  birds  were 
almost  a  specialty  of  Euripides,  even  before 
his  banishment.  He  must  surely  have  loved 
wild  animals,  and  he  certainly  knew  the 
value  of  them  in  a  chorus ;  but  no  one  except 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

a  wizard  could  guess  in  which  of  his  animal 
similes  Euripides  was  describing  himself. 

I  shall  now  take  up  some  passages  from 
the  same  Introductory  Essay  in  which  Pro 
fessor  Murray  points  out  things  of  impor 
tance  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  work 
itself.  I  begin  with  a  passage  in  which 
Murray  wilfully  perverts  the  Greek  mean 
ing. 

"  'What  else  is  wisdom  ?'  Euripides  asks 
in  a  marvellous  passage : 

'What  else  is  wisdom?    What  of  man's 
endeavour 

Or  God's  high  grace  so  lovely  and  so 
great  ? 

To  stand  from  fear  set  free,  to  breathe 
and  wait ; 

To  hold  a  hand  uplifted  over  Hate; 

And  shall  not  loveliness  be  loved  for 
ever?' 

"He  [Euripides]  was  escaped  and  happy; 
he  was  beyond  the  reach  of  Hate." 

This  certainly  is  a  marvellous  find,  and 
drives  us  to  the  original.  The  \vords,  it  ap 
pears,  are  part  of  a  chorus  sung  imme 
diately  after  Pentheus  has  gone  forth  to  his 


GREEK  GENIUS 

death   (1.  877).     A  close  translation  is  as 
follows : 

"Ah!  What  is  wisdom  (i.e.,  man's  wit)  ? 
What  fairer  boon  hath  God  given  mortals 
than  to  raise  the  hand  in  victory  o'er  the  foe  ? 
What  is  fair  is  loved  forever." 

The  note  in  Mr.  Beckwith's  school  edition 
says: 

"Moral  greatness  with  the  ancient  Greeks 
consisted  no  less  in  an  immutable  hatred 
towards  foes  than  in  a  constant  love  towards 
friends." 

The  last  words,  "What  is  honourable  is 
always  pleasant,"  were,  it  seems,  a  proverb. 

The  'marvellous  passage'  cited  by  Mur 
ray  is,  in  fact,  a  curse  by  the  Chorus,  and 
the  curse  is  repeated,  word  for  word,  being 
sung  twice  for  the  sake  of  emphasis.  Does 
Gilbert  Murray  believe  that  the  Greek  text 
here  will  bear  his  interpretation?  The 
savagery  of  the  Chorus  in  the  Bacchantes  is 
horrible,  but  it  is  extremely  Hellenic;  and  it 
is,  one  might  say,  the  mainspring  of  the 
play.  Murray's  translation  is  not  a  transla 
tion,  not  a  transcription  nor  a  rendering  of 
any  sort,  but  a  flat  denial  of  the  original  and 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

the  insertion  of  the  opposite  sentiment  in  the 
mouth  of  the  character.  Can  this  be  justi 
fied?  Of  course,  with  metrical  translations 
an  immense  license  is  necessary  if  the  trans 
lator  is  to  do  anything  poetic.  But  has  the 
translator  a  right  to  make  up  something  else 
and  then  say  he  found  it  in  the  original  ? 

The  poet  Murray  must  have  puzzled  for 
some  time  over  this  text  before  rinding  his 
message  in  it.  At  last  he  perceives  that  by 
introverting  the  sense  of  it  something  can 
be  done.  He  adjusts  the  sordino,  and,  as 
the  melancholy  Jaques  would  say,  he  draws 
the  Oxford  out  of  it  as  a  weasel  sucks  an 
egg.  But  he  stops  not  here.  The  mood  of 
inspiration  is  on  him.  He  proceeds  to  work 
the  passage  up  into  a  Selbstportrait  of  Eu 
ripides,  and  to  represent  the  old  poet  as 
blessing  his  enemies  from  the  serenity  of  his 
retreat  in  Macedonia. 

Let  us  now  take  up  two  passages  in  which 
Murray  has  introduced  modern  theological 
ideas.  "Nay,  he  [Euripides],"  says  Murray, 
"was  safe,  and  those  who  hated  him  were 
suffering.  A  judgment  seemed  to  be  upon 
them,  these  men  who  had  resolved  to  have 
no  dealings  with  'the  three  deadly  enemies 
of  Empire,  Pity  and  Eloquent  Sentiments 
and  the  Generosity  of  Strength';  who  lived, 


GREEK  GENIUS 

as  Thucydides  says  in  another  passage  (vi, 
90),  in  dreams  of  wider  and  wider  conquest, 
—the  conquest  of  Sicily,  of  South  Italy,  of 
Carthage  and  all  her  Empire,  of  every  coun 
try  that  touched  the  sea.  They  had  forgotten 
the  essence  of  religion,  forgotten  the  eternal 
laws,  and  the  judgment  in  wait  for  those 
who  'worship  the  Ruthless  Will';  who 
dream 

'Dreams  of  the  proud  man,  making  great 

And  greater  ever 
Things  that  are  not  of  God/ 

"It  is  against  the  essential  irreligion  implied 
in  these  dreams  that  he  appeals  in  the  same 
song: 

'And  is  thy  faith  so  much  to  give  ? 
Is  it  so  hard  a  thing  to  see, 
That  the  Spirit  of  God,  whate'er  it  be, 
The  Law  that  abides  and  falters  not,  ages 

long, 

The  Eternal  and  Nature-born — these 
things  be  strong?' ' 

Now,  as  to  the  "dreams  of  the  proud 
man/'  etc.  A  close  translation  of  the  sen 
tence  in  which  the  words  occur  is  as  fol 
lows  : 

"The  might  of  God  moves  slowly,  yet  is 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

it  sure.  It  punishes  those  who  honour  the 
senseless  pride  of  men,  and  alike  those  who, 
distraught  in  mind,  exalt  not  the  things  of 
God." 

With  regard  to  the  verse,  "And  is  thy 
faith  so  much  to  give?"  etc.,  a  close  transla 
tion  is  as  follows : 

"Man  shall  not  press  thought  or  act  be 
yond  the  law.  Tis  little  to  give— the  faith 
that  the  power  divine,  whate'er  it  be,  that 
which  ages  long  have  stablished  and  which 
is  born  of  nature's  law— that  this  hath 
strength." 

In  translating  these  last  two  passages  Pro 
fessor  Murray  has  given  the  sense  of  the 
passages,  except  for  the  theology  implied  in 
the  capital  letters.  We  next  come  to  a  case 
that  looks  like  criminal  misrepresentation  of 
the  Greek  meaning. 

"In  one  difficult  and  beautiful  passage," 
says  Murray,  "Euripides  seems  to  give  us 
his  own  apology : 

'Knowledge,  we  are  not  foes ! 

I  seek  thee  diligently ; 
But  the  world  with  a  great  wind  blows, 
Shining,  and  not  from  thee ; 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Blowing  to  beautiful  things, 

On  amid  dark  and  light, 
Till  Life  through  the  trammellings 

Of  Laws  that  are  not  the  Right, 
Breaks,  clean  and  pure,  and  sings, 

Glorying  to  God  in  the  height !' 

"One  feels  grateful  for  that  voice  from 
the  old  Euripides  amid  the  strange,  new 
tones  of  the  Baccha." 

Now  it  appears  that  this  'difficult  and 
beautiful'  passage  is  a  well  known  corrupt 
text  (1.  1005),  one  of  those  choral  inherit 
ances  where  the  general  meaning  is  clear  but 
the  text,  through  the  errors  of  copyists,  has 
become  hopeless  and  irrecoverable.  Mr.  A. 
H.  Cruickshank,  in  his  school  edition  of  the 
Clarendon  Press  Series,  gives  alternate 
translations,  whose  differences  depend  on 
suggested  changes  in  the  text.  I  copy  them 
both,  as  they  illustrate  the  difficulties  of  the 
subject.  Mr.  Cruickshank  is  obliged  to 
make  use  of  paraphrases  and  of  expansions 
in  order  to  get  anything  like  a  clear  meaning 
from  the  passage.  He  first  translates  it  as 
follows : 

"I  do  not  rejoice  pursuing  wisdom,  so  as 
to  offend  the  gods,  but  (I  do  rejoice  pur- 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

suing)  the  other  things,  great  and  illus 
trious,  things  of  a  class  which  ever  tend  to 
what  is  noble, — namely,  to  lead  a  pious  and 
pure  life  day  and  night." 


His  second  translation  is  as  follows : 

"I  envy  not  (false)  wisdom,  but  I  rejoice 
pursuing  those  other  matters,  which  are 
manifestly  important,  ever  leading  life  to 
noble  ends, — namely,  that  a  man  should  day 
and  night  be  pious  and  holy,  and  honour 
the  gods  by  rejecting  all  the  ordinances  that 
are  beyond  the  pale  of  justice." 

Considering  the  darkness  which  broods 
over  this  particular  passage,  it  might  seem 
disingenuous  in  Murray  to  translate  the  pas 
sage  as  he  has  done,  ending  up  with : 
"Glorying  to  God  in  the  height!", — and 
then  add:  "One  feels  grateful  for  that  voice 
from  the  old  Euripides  amid  the  strange, 
new  tones  of  the  Bacchcc."  But  it  is  not 
disingenuous ;  it  is  the  very  reverse :  it  is 
ingenuous,  most  ingenuous.  The  Neo-Hel- 
lene  of  Oxford  regards  a  Greek  play  as  a 
bundle  of  Sibylline  leaves  blown  wildly 
about  a  cavern.  The  prophetess  thrusts  one 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  them  into  the  scholar's  hand,  and  he 
sings.  To  the  Neo-Hellene  a  Greek  drama 
tist  is  a  moody,  groping  sort  of  person  who 
lives  in  a  maze  of  intimations, — intimations 
of  Oxford, — and  commits  almost  anything 
to  paper  that  passes  through  his  head.  Says 
Murray  in  this  same  Introductory  Essay : 

"Probably  all  dramatists  who  possess 
strong  personal  beliefs  yield  at  times  to  the 
temptation  of  using  one  of  their  characters 
as  a  mouthpiece  for  their  own  feelings.  And 
the  Greek  Chorus,  a  half -dramatic,  half- 
lyrical  creation,  both  was,  and  was  felt  to 
be,  particularly  suitable  for  such  use.  Of 
course  a  writer  does  not— or  at  least  should 
not — use  the  drama  to  express  his  mere 
Views'  on  ordinary  and  commonplace  ques 
tions,  to  announce  his  side  in  politics  or  his 
sect  in  religion.  But  it  is  a  method  wonder 
fully  contrived  for  expressing  those  vaguer 
faiths  and  aspirations  which  a  man  feels 
haunting  him  and  calling  to  him,  but  which 
he  cannot  state  in  plain  language  or  uphold 
with  a  full  acceptance  of  responsibility. 
You  can  say  the  thing  that  wishes  to  be  said ; 
you  'give  it  its  chance';  you  relieve  your 
mind  of  it.  And  if  it  proves  to  be  all  non 
sense—well,  it  is  not  you  that  said  it.  It  is 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

only  a  character   in   one  of   your   plays!" 
(Ib.,  p.  Iviii.) 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  anything  more 
misleading  than  this  about  the  Greek  theatre, 
where  every  word  was  a  stone  in  the  arch  of 
the  play,  every  character  was  provided  by 
tradition,  every  thought  was  conventional. 
The  structural  nature  of  a  Greek  drama  is 
known  to  everyone,  and  is  perfectly  well 
known  to  Mr.  Gilbert  Murray;  but  the 
fumes  from  his  tripod  cover  his  brain  as  he 
writes  his  translations,  and  these  fumes  per 
vade  the  introductions  and  the  notes  to  the 
poems.  The  merit  of  the  verse  itself  is  due 
to  this  very  envelope  of  steaming  inspira 
tion  and  poetic  sentiment.  But  the  waking 
Murray  ought  really  to  join  in  warning  the 
public  against  the  hymning,  dreamy,  irre 
sponsible  Murray,  the  poet  Murray  who  is 
spreading  grotesque  ideas  about  Euripides 
beneath  every  shaded  lamp  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world. 

We  are  thus  compelled,  then,  to  look 
askance  at  one  very  visible  and  very  charm- 
;  ing  branch  of  Greek  scholarship  at  Oxford, 
and  to  sink  new  foundations  of  our  own,  if 
we  would  escape  the  cloying  influence  of  this 
literary  school.  Perhaps  there  is  not  any- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

thing  novel  or  anything  very  desperate  in 
such  a  situation.  The  tendency  of  universi 
ties  has  ever  been  to  breed  cliques  and  secret 
societies,  to  produce  embroideries  and  start 
hothouses  of  specialised  feeling.  They  do 
well  in  doing  this :  it  is  all  they  can  do.  We 
should  look  upon  them  as  great  furnaces  of 
culture,  largely  social  in  their  influence, 
which  warm  and  nourish  the  general  tem 
perament  of  a  nation. 

Would  that  in  America  we  had  a  local 
school  of  classic  cultivation  half  as  inter 
esting  as  this  Neo-Hellenism  of  Oxford, 
quaint  and  non-intellectual  as  it  is!  It  is 
alive  and  it  is  national.  While  most  absurd 
from  the  point  of  view  of  universal  culture, 
it  is  most  satisfactory  from  the  domestic 
point  of  view,— as,  indeed,  everything  in 
England  is.  If  in  America  we  shall  ever 
develop  any  true  universities,  they  will  have 
faults  of  their  own.  Their  defects  will  be 
of  a  new  strain,  no  doubt,  and  will  reflect 
our  national  shortcomings.  These  thoughts 
but  teach  us  that  we  cannot  use  other  peo 
ple's  eyes  or  other  people's  eye-glasses.  We 
have  still  to  grind  the  lenses  through  which 
we  shall,  in  our  turn,  observe  the  classics. 


VII 

CONCLUSION 

THERE  is  one  thing  that  we  should 
never  do  in  dealing  with  anything 
Greek.  We  should  not  take  a  scrap  of  the 
Greek  mind  and  keep  on  examining  it  until 
we  find  a  familiar  thought  in  it.  No  bit  of 
Greek  art  is  to  be  viewed  as  a  thing  in  itself. 
It  is  always  a  fragment,  and  gets  its  value 
from  the  whole.  Every  bit  of  carved  stone 
picked  up  in  Athens  is  a  piece  of  architec 
ture;  so  is  every  speech  in  a  play,  every 
phrase  in  a  dialogue.  You  must  go  back 
and  bring  in  the  whole  Theatre  or  the  whole 
Academy,  and  put  back  the  fragment  in  its 
place  by  means  of  ladders,  before  you  can 
guess  at  its  meaning.  The  inordinate  sig 
nificance  that  seems  to  gleam  from  every 
broken  toy  of  Greece  results  from  this  very 
quality, — that  the  object  is  a  part  of  some 
thing  else.  Just  because  the  thing  has  no 
meaning  by  itself,  it  implies  so  much.  Some 
how  it  drags  the  whole  life  of  the  Greek 


GREEK  GENIUS 

nation  before  you.  The  favourite  Greek 
maxim,  "Avoid  excess,"  does  the  same.  It 
keeps  telling  you  to  remember  yesterday  and 
to-morrow;  to  remember  the  palaestra  and 
the  market-place;  above  all,  to  remember 
that  the  very  opposite  of  what  you  say  is 
also  true.  Wherever  you  are,  and  whatever 
doing,  you  must  remember  the  rest  of  the 
Greek  world. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Greeks  could  not 
adopt  the  standards  and  contrivances  of 
other  nations,  while  their  own  standards  and 
contrivances  resulted  from  such  refined  and 
perpetual  balancing  and  shaving  of  values. 
This  refinement  has  become  part  of  their 
daily  life;  and  whether  one  examines  a 
drinking-cup  or  a  dialogue  or  a  lyric,  and 
whether  the  thing  be  from  the  age  of  Homer 
or  from  the  age  of  Alexander,  the  fragment 
always  gives  us  a  glimpse  into  the  same 
Greek  world.  The  foundation  of  this  world 
seems  to  be  the  Myth;  and  as  the  world 
grew  it  developed  in  terms  of  Myth.  The 
Greek  mind  had  only  one  background.  Ath 
letics  and  Statuary,  Epic  and  Drama,  Re 
ligion  and  Art,  Scepticism  and  Science, 
expressed  themselves  through  the  same 
myths.  In  this  lies  the  fascination  of  Greece 
for  us.  What  a  complete  cosmos  it  is !  And 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

how  different  from  any  other  civilisation! 
Modern  life,  like  modern  language,  is  a  mon 
strous  amalgam,  a  conglomeration  and  mess 
of  idioms  from  every  age  and  every  clime. 
The  classic  Greek  hangs  together  like  a 
wreath.  It  has  been  developed  rapidly,  dur 
ing  a  few  hundred  years,  and  has  an  inner 
harmony  like  the  temple.  Language  and 
temple, — each  was  an  apparition;  each  is,  in 
its  own  way,  perfect. 

Consider  wherein  Rome  differed  from 
Greece.  The  life  of  the  Romans  was  a 
patchwork,  like  our  own.  Their  religion 
was  formal,  their  art  imported,  their  liter 
ature  imitative;  their  aims  were  practical, 
their  interests  unimaginative.  All  social 
needs  were  controlled  by  political  considera 
tions.  This  sounds  almost  like  a  description 
of  modern  life,  and  it  explains  why  the 
Romans  are  so  close  to  us.  Cicero,  Horace, 
Csesar,  Antony,  are  moderns.  But  Alci- 
biades,  Socrates,  Pericles,  and  the  rest  take 
their  stand  in  Greek  fable.  Like  Pisistratus, 
Solon,  and  Lycurgus,  they  melt  into  legend 
and  belong  to  the  realms  of  the  imagination. 

No  other  people  ever  bore  the  same  rela 
tion  to  their  arts  that  the  Greeks  bore ;  and 
in  this  lies  their  charm.  When  the  Alexan 
drine  critics  began  to  classify  poetry  and  to 

£127:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

discuss  perfection,  they  never  even  men 
tioned  the  Roman  poetry,  although  all  of  the 
greatest  of  it  was  in  existence.  Why  is  this  ? 
It  is  because  no  Roman  poem  is  a  poem  at 
all  from  the  Greek  point  of  view.  It  is  too 
individual,  too  clever,  and,  generally,  too 
political.  Besides,  it  is  not  in  Greek.  The 
nearest  modern  analogy  to  the  develop 
ment  of  the  whole  Greek  world  of  art  is  to 
be  found  in  German  contrapuntal  music. 
No  one  except  a  German  has  ever  written  a 
true  sonata  or  a  symphony  in  the  true  poly 
phonic  German  style.  There  are  tours  de 
force  done  by  other  nationalities,  but  the 
natural  idiom  of  this  music  is  Teutonic. 

I  am  not  condemning  the  Latins  or  the 
moderns.  Indeed,  there  is  in  Horace  some 
thing  nobler  and  more  humane  than  in  all 
Olympus.  The  Greeks,  moreover,  seem  in 
their  civic  incompetence  like  children  when 
contrasted  with  the  Romans  or  with  the 
moderns.  But  in  power  of  utterance,  within 
their  own  crafts,  the  Greeks  are  unapproach 
able.  Let  us  now  speak  of  matters  of  which 
we  know  very  little. 

The  statues  on  the  Parthenon  stand  in  a 
region  where  direct  criticism  cannot  reach 
them,  but  which  trigonometry  may,  to  some 
extent,  determine.  Their  beauty  probably 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

results  from  an  artistic  knowledge  so  re 
fined,  a  sophistication  so  exact,  that,  as  we 
gaze,  we  lose  the  process  and  see  only  results. 
A  Greek  architect  could  have  told  you  just 
what  lines  of  analysis  must  be  followed  in 
order  to  get  these  effects  in  grouping  and  in 
relief.  It  is  all,  no  doubt,  built  up  out  of 
tonic  and  dominant,  but  the  manual  of 
counterpoint  has  been  lost.  As  the  tragic 
poet  fills  the  stage  with  the  legend,  so  the 
sculptor  fills  the  metope  with  the  legend. 
Both  are  closely  following  artistic  usage: 
each  is  merely  telling  the  old  story  with  new 
refinement.  And  whether  we  gaze  at  the 
actors  on  the  stage  or  at  the  figures  in  the 
metope,  whether  we  study  a  lyric  or  listen  to 
a  dialogue,  we  are  in  communion  with  the 
same  genius,  the  same  legend.  The  thing 
which  moves  and  delights  us  is  a  unity. 

This  Genius  is  not  hard  to  understand. 
Anyone  can  understand  it.  That  is  the 
proof  of  its  greatness.  As  Boccaccio  said  of 
Dante,  not  learning  but  good  wits  are  needed 
to  appreciate  him.  One  cannot  safely  look 
towards  the  mind  of  the  modern  scholar  for 
an  understanding  of  the  Greek  mind,  because 
the  modern  scholar  is  a  specialist,  a  thing 
the  Greek  abhors.  If  a  scholar  to-day  knows 
the  acoustics  of  the  Greek  stage,  that  is 


GREEK  GENIUS 

thought  to  be  a  large  enough  province  for 
him.  He  is  not  allowed  to  be  an  authority 
on  the  scenery.  In  the  modern  scholar's 
mind  everything  is  in  cubby-holes;  and 
everybody  to-day  wants  to  become  an  au 
thority.  Everyone,  moreover,  is  very  se 
rious  to-day;  and  it  does  not  do  to  be  too 
serious  about  Greek  things,  because  the  very 
genius  of  Greece  has  in  it  a  touch  of  irony 
which  combines  with  our  seriousness  to 
make  a  heavy,  indigestible  paste.  The  Greek 
will  always  laugh  at  you  if  he  can,  and  the 
only  hope  is  to  keep  him  at  arm's  length  and 
deal  with  him  in  the  spirit  of  social  life,  of 
the  world,  of  the  beau  monde,  and  of  large 
conversation.  His  chief  merit  is  to  stimu 
late  this  spirit.  The  less  we  dogmatise  about 
his  works  and  ways,  the  freer  will  the  world 
be  of  secondary,  second-rate  commentaries. 
The  more  we  study  his  works  and  ways,  the 
fuller  will  the  world  become  of  intellectual 
force. 

The  Greek  classics  are  a  great  help  in 
tearing  open  those  strong  envelopes  in  which 
the  cultivation  of  the  world  is  constantly 
getting  glued  up.  They  helped  Europe  to 
cut  free  from  theocratic  tyranny  in  the  late 
Middle  Ages.  They  held  the  Western 
world  together  after  the  fall  of  the  Papacy. 
['303 


EURIPIDES  AND  GREEK  GENIUS 

They  gave  us  modern  literature:  indeed,  if 
one  considers  all  that  comes  from  Greece, 
one  can  hardly  imagine  what  the  world 
would  have  been  like  without  her.  The 
lamps  of  Greek  thought  are  still  burning  in 
marble  and  in  letters.  The  complete  little 
microcosm  of  that  Greek  society  hangs  for 
ever  in  the  great  macrocosm  of  the  moving 
world,  and  sheds  rays  which  dissolve  preju 
dice,  making  men  thoughtful,  rational,  and 
gay.  The  greatest  intellects  are  ever  the 
most  powerfully  affected  by  it;  but  no  one 
escapes.  Nor  can  the  world  ever  lose  this 
benign  influence,  which  must,  so  far  as  phi 
losophy  can  imagine,  qualify  human  life  for 
ever. 


II 
SHAKESPEARE 


THE  GREEK  STAGE  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

r  I  ^HE  classic  stage  and  Shakespeare's 
-L  theatre  have,  at  first  sight,  nothing  in 
common ;  for  the  first  was  dedicated  to 
unity,  the  second  to  variety.  The  great  size 
of  the  antique  stage  made  unity  essential.  A 
play  had  but  three  or  four  characters  and 
involved  but  one  or  two  ideas,  which  were 
hammered  upon  during  the  entire  perform 
ance.  When  the  heroes  ceased  speaking,  the 
Chorus  took  up  the  thread  of  the  argument. 
A  Greek  tragedy,  moreover,  was  of  national 
origin  and  of  religious  import.  The  plot 
was  always  taken  from  a  familiar  myth ;  and 
only  great  personages,  heroes,  kings  and 
princes,  \vere  allowed  upon  the  stage. 

A  play  of  Shakespeare's,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  acted  in  a  small  space,  and  in 
volved  twenty  or  thirty  characters.  It  took 
place  amid  hurried  shif tings  of  scene  (imag 
inary  scene,  for  there  was  next  to  no  real 
scenery) .  The  plot  was  any  story  under  the 

' 


GREEK  GENIUS 

sun.  Tragedy  and  comedy  were  mixed.  It 
had  no  public  or  religious  significance.  In 
fact,  it  was  always  on  the  verge  of  being 
taboo,  and  was  constantly  told  by  the 
police  to  move  on.  As  for  unity  and  the 
Unities,  the  fixed  and  stationary  character 
of  the  staging  itself  was  about  the  only  unity 
in  many  Elizabethan  plays. 

In  spite  of  these  vast  differences  between 
the  Greek  stage  and  Shakespeare's  stage, 
there  are  certain  resemblances  between  the 
greatest  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies  and  the 
greatest  Greek  tragedies.  There  is,  in  a  few 
of  Shakespeare's  plays,  as  in  Othello  and 
King  Lear,  a  unity  of  theme,  a  single  mov 
ing  column  of  idea,  which  makes  them 
analogous  to  Greek  plays,  though  all  the 
machinery  is  different.  Then  the  language 
of  Shakespeare's  loftiest  tragic  vein  has 
many  turns  of  thought  and  metaphor  which 
are  surprisingly  like  the  Greek.  Then,  too, 
both  theatres  are  intellectual, — that  is  to  say, 
the  appeal  is  an  intellectual  appeal,  done 
through  the  presentation  of  ideas  in  the  text, 
not  through  melodrama  or  pantomime. 
Every  idea  is  articulated  into  words.  If  a 
person  has  a  pain  or  sees  someone  coming  he 
says :  "I  have  a  pain,"  "I  see  someone  com 
ing."  The  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the 
C'361 


SHAKESPEARE 

characters  are  thus  metaphysically  pre 
sented,  and  are  often  expounded  with  a 
rhetorical  power  which  the  stage  functions 
of  the  characters  do  not  suggest.  Both  on 
the  Greek  and  on  the  English  stage  each 
character  has,  as  it  were,  the  privilege  of 
becoming  the  poet;  and  it  is  the  unspoken 
convention  that  no  one  shall  notice  the  excur 
sion.  There  is  a  danger  connected  with  this 
privilege ;  for  when  the  poet  gets  on  his  own 
hobby  he  is  apt  to  make  the  little  fishes  talk 
like  whales.  For  instance,  it  is  natural  that 
an  old  nurse  should  talk  about  death  and  the 
next  world ;  but  it  is  not  natural  that  an  old 
nurse  should  betray  the  peculiar  cast  of 
thought  of  a  philosophic  scholar,  which  Eu 
ripides  throws  over  Phredra's  attendant. 
The  old  woman  closes  a  philosophic  speech 
as  follows :  "And  so  we  show  our  mad  love 
of  this  life  because  its  light  is  shed  on  earth, 
and  because  we  know  no  other,  and  have 
naught  revealed  to  us  of  all  our  Earth  may 
hide;  and  trusting  to  fables,  we  drift  at  ran 
dom." 

So  also  Shakespeare,  in  As  You  Like  It, 
suddenly  endows  Phoebe  the  shepherdess 
with  a  "discourse  of  reason"  much  resem 
bling  Hamlet's,  because  a  subject  has  come 
up  that  interests  the  poet,— namely,  the 


GREEK  GENIUS 

difference  between  physical  injury  and  men 
tal  distress. 

"Lean  but  upon  a  rush,"  says  Phoebe, 
"The  cicatrice  and  capable  impressure 
Thy  palm  some  moment  keeps,  but  now 

mine  eyes, 

Which  I  have  darted  at  thee,  hurt  thee 
not." 

It  is  the  blank  verse  that  gives  the  nurse 
and  Phcebe  this  enlargement  of  their  pow 
ers.  In  fact,  both  Greek  tragedy  and 
Shakespearian  tragedy  are  in  their  poetic 
march  a  sort  of  great  Gargantuan  discourse 
issuing  from  the  mouth  of  the  poet,  the 
stage  being  his  jaws. 

There  is  yet  another  resemblance  between 
Shakespeare  and  the  Greeks.  Both  the 
Greek  tragedies  and  Shakespeare's  best  plays 
have  been  written  with  supreme  facility. 
They  have  fallen  from  the  pen.  They  exist 
in  a  region  of  artistic  fulfilment.  I  suspect 
that  it  is  this  latter  element  of  perfection 
that  links  Shakespeare  and  the  Greeks  in  our 
thought,  rather  than  all  the  rest  of  their 
scanty  resemblances.  So  far  as  perfection 
of  form  goes,  the  Greek  plays  are  infinitely 
superior  to  Shakespeare's.  So  far  as  native 

D38] 


SHAKESPEARE 

talent  goes,  there  is  no  Greek  dramatist  who 
stands  anywhere  near  Shakespeare,  though 
Aristophanes  suggests  him.  In  each  case 
perfection  reaches  a  climax.  With  the 
Greeks  it  is  the  perfection  of  massive  racial 
power;  with  Shakespeare,  the  perfection  of 
modern  romantic  sentiment. 


£1393 


II 

SHAKESPEARE'S  VEHICLE 

invention  of  the  alphabet  very  soon 
-L  turned  all  forms  of  articulate  expres 
sion  into  mere  reading  and  writing.  The 
first  edition  of  Homer's  poems,  no  doubt, 
threw  the  reciters  out  of  work,  and  handed 
over  the  poems  bound  hand  and  foot  to  the 
literary  fraternity,— to  those  men  with  ink- 
bottles  and  sheets  of  parchment  who  have 
owned  and  controlled  the  poems  ever  since. 
(Happy  is  the  ordinary  man  if  the  scholars 
will  give  him  but  a  peep  at  them !)  To-day 
we  have  almost  forgotten  that  Homer  was 
originally  intended  for  recitation,  not  for 
reading.  The  form  in  which  we  know  the 
Iliad  is  due,  thinks  Professor  Gilbert  Mur 
ray,  to  the  demands  of  a  reading  public.  In 
like  manner,  Shakespeare's  plays  have,  dur 
ing  the  last  two  hundred  years,  been  kept 
upon  the  stage  largely  through  the  influence 
of  the  reading  public.  The  world  will  un- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

doubtedly  continue  to  read  the  plays  long 
after  they  have  ceased  to  walk  the  boards. 

There  is  a  great  and  terrible  truth  at  the 
bottom  of  this  outcome.  Things  are  better 
understood,  more  rapidly  and  more  vividly 
taken  in,  when  they  are  read  than  when  they 
are  recited  or  acted;  and  though  the  rise  of 
a  great  actor  may  now  and  then  qualify  this 
rule  for  a  day,  though  Garrick  or  Edmund 
Kean  or  Salvini  may  show  the  true  Shake 
speare  in  a  flash,  the  memory  of  which  lasts 
for  the  hearer's  lifetime,  yet  the  mass  of 
men  must  depend  on  the  printed  page  for  all 
their  knowledge  of  Homer  or  of  Shake 
speare.  We  know  Hamlet  so  well  that  it  is 
only  by  an  effort  that  we  remember  that 
Hamlet  was  once  a  play,  a  thing  unfamiliar, 
a  novelty  in  a  theatre,  where  people  sat  and 
wondered  and  watched  the  actors.  Shake 
speare  on  the  stage  has  been  murdered  by 
Shakespeare  in  the  closet.  The  theatre  of 
one's  own  mind  is  more  interesting  than  any 
actual  theatre,  and  our  inward  actors  outdo 
all  but  the  greatest  tragedians  and  come 
dians  of  the  world. 

On  the  real  stage  things  move  too  slowly. 
I  am  bored  with  every  speech :  the  lines  are 
too  familiar.  The  theatre  compels  me  to 
take  in  the  text  by  linear  measurement,  and 


SHAKESPEARE 

never  to  skip.  I  cannot  turn  the  page  or 
dwell  upon  a  favourite  passage.  I  am 
cramped  and  bullied  and  held  in  place.  And, 
after  all,  what  do  I  get  in  a  theatre  that 
cannot  be  got  in  the  easy-chair,  where  all  the 
actors  become  brilliant  and  the  plot  never 
lags? 

We  need  not  wonder,  then,  that  the  liter 
ary  influences,  the  pen-and-ink,  closet  influ 
ences  of  the  world  have  controlled  Homer 
and  /Eschylus,  for  we  see  that  they  control 
Shakespeare.  There  is  hardly  a  student  of 
the  poet,  there  is  hardly  a  commentator  on 
him,  who  thinks  of  the  stage  once  in  a  vol 
ume;  and  worst  of  all, — most  dreadful  of 
all,  —  Shakespeare  himself  forgets  the  stage 
for  hours  together.  He  becomes  so  inward, 
so  excited,  so  imvound  in  his  own  enchant 
ments  that  much  of  his  greatest  thought  is 
lost  in  the  staging  of  it.  He  is  more  poet 
than  dramatist.  He  is  the  victim  and  the 
archangel  of  pen  and  ink. 

Nevertheless,  in  reviewing  Shakespeare 
one  must  go  back  to  the  Globe  Theatre  and 
to  those  other  murky  jars  out  of  which  the 
clouds  issued  that  have  filled  the  world. 
The  little  tumbledown  barns  where  his  plays 
were  staged,  and  the  ragged  succession  of 
scenes  that  constituted  a  drama  in  his  day, 

C'43] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

required  variety  and  rapid  handling.  Shades 
of  humour  and  of  extravagance  abound; 
parenthetical,  non  -  dramatic,  personal 
touches,  things  which  come  from  nowhere 
and  vanish.  They  abound  because  the  au 
dience  is  close  to  the  actors  and  can  enjoy 
them.  The  boards  are  flooded  by  a  con 
course  of  characters,  comic  and  tragic. 
There  is  an  interweaving  of  several  plots, 
no  division  into  acts,  a  swarming  of  hu 
manity  as  at  a  fair,  and  generally  no  scenic 
interest,  no  piece  montee  at  the  end.  A  play 
ends  where  it  ends,  often  with  only  two  per 
sons  on  the  stage.  Instead  of  the  "features" 
of  the  classic  stage,— I  mean  the  well-under 
stood,  artistic  members  of  a  Greek  play,  as 
the  recitations  by  messengers,  dramatic 
dialogues,  trochaic  passages,  etc., — we  have 
improvised  features  of  Shakespeare's  own 
invention,  bits  of  ornament  thrown  in  as  it 
strikes  his  fancy  to  use  them;  as,  for  in 
stance,  Jaques'  "Seven  Ages,"  Mercutio's 
"Queen  Mab,"  Hamlet's  "Speech  to  the 
Players,"  Lorenzo's  "On  Such  a  Night  as 
this."  There  are  also  ornamental  character 
isations,  as,  for  instance,  Queen  Katherine's 
character  of  Wolsey,  lago's  satirical  sketch 
of  the  "Perfect  Woman," — moral  saws,  and 
bits  of  description,  sometimes  raised  through 


SHAKESPEARE 

the  alchemy  of  inspiration  into  the  greatest 
poetry  in  existence.  All  these  things  are 
flung  and  sowed  along  the  path  of  the  play 
and  distract  us  into  little  unexpected  palaces 
of  happiness. 

The  dramatic  practices  of  Shakespeare 
and  of  his  contemporaries  can  hardly  be 
called  a  school  of  drama.  What  other  man 
except  Shakespeare  could  succeed  in  his 
method  of  play-writing?  It  is  the  Eliza 
bethan  method;  but  there  was  only  one 
Elizabethan  who  could  write  thus  and  be 
readable  or  actable.  The  rest  of  them  have 
been  dragged  into  nineteenth-century  notice 
by  the  archaeologists  of  literature,  but  are 
about  to  fall  back  into  the  limbo  where  they 
belong.  It  is  all  a  personal  charm,  this 
charm  of  Shakespeare's,  and  criticism  can 
no  more  reach  the  essence  of  it  than  we  can 
define  the  smell  of  a  rose.  It  is  in  each 
phrase  that  the  mystery  lies.  The  poet  him 
self  was  unconscious  and  indifferent  as  to 
the  whole  phenomenon  of  his  talent;  and 
we  are  likelier  to  reach  him  if  we  follow  him 
in  this  very  indifference  than  if  we  attempt 
an  analysis.  The  Greeks  were  critics  by 
nature,  and  we  may  sauce  them  with  their 
own  polite  learning  without  fear  of  becom 
ing  ridiculous ;  but  the  academic  person  has 


GREEK  GENIUS 

never  been  quite  able  to  get  Shakespeare  into 
his  palazzo.  He  tries  to  introduce  the  poet 
through  the  front  portico;  but  the  columns 
are  too  close  together.  Then  he  leads  him 
round  to  the  back,  takes  down  part  of  the 
wall,  and  so  leaves  our  poet  in  the  back 
yard,  not  omitting,  however,  to  put  up  a 
fine  inscription  about  him  in  the  rotunda. 
The  truth  is  that  the  philosophical  machinery 
of  Learning  does  not  help  us  here.  We  are 
more  apt  to  take  a  good  observation  of 
Shakespeare  by  lying  in  the  grass  and  mak 
ing  a  guess  than  by  erecting  a  telescope.  As 
to  Shakespeare's  art  and  his  technique,  the 
critics  have  been  at  work  over  them  for  a 
hundred  years,  and  have  found  him  to  be  a 
master  of  the  craft  of  his  own  kind  of  stage, 
whenever  he  chose  to  be  such.  We  need  not 
dispute  this :  it  is  a  small  part  of  the  subject. 
Nevertheless,  Shakespeare's  stage  technique 
is  as  experimental  as  the  rest  of  his  work. 
He  has  no  system,  but  only  habits ;  and  these 
habits  hang  so  loosely  on  him  that  very  often 
he  forgets  where  he  is,  and  does  something 
unexpected. 

The  plays  were  certainly  meant  for  rapid 
presentation.  It  is  impossible  to  recite 
Hamlet's  advice  to  the  players  in  an  ordi 
nary  modern  theatre  without  violating  every 


SHAKESPEARE 

injunction  of  the  poet  as  to  proper  diction 
and  delivery.  If  you  follow  Hamlet's  in 
junctions,  the  speech  will  not  be  heard  or 
understood  by  a  third  of  your  modern  au 
dience.  King  Lear  cannot  be  staged— it  is 
too  long— unless  the  actors  crowd  on  and 
off  the  boards  like  the  characters  in  the 
greenroom  of  a  circus.  No  one  of  us  has 
ever  seen  a  Shakespeare  play  given  as  it 
ought  to  be  given ;  for  traditional  acting  has 
put  intention  into  everything;  pauses,  elocu 
tion  and  eye-work  are  dc  rigneur;  the  vanity 
of  a  dozen  generations  of  actors  has  trained 
the  public  to  expect,  not  a  play,  but  selected 
scenes  from  Shakespeare,  well  dressed  up 
and  painstakingly  interpreted. 

The  forte  of  the  small  theatre  is  that  it 
can  make  passing  allusions  to  vivid  personal 
traits.  Shakespeare's  plays  are  full  of  char 
acters  that  remind  us  of  Teniers  and  of 
Rembrandt.  It  is  a  stage  where  fleeting 
imaginative  impressions  chase  one  another, 
and  nothing  is  monumental.  It  is  like  the 
internal  stage  of  the  mind.  It  is,  in  fact,  the 
stage  of  Shakespeare's  own  mind,  almost 
unsubdued  to  reality,  unvisited  by  the  stage 
carpenter.  This  is  the  most  internal  writing 
ever  done,  this  writing  of  Shakespeare's;  it 
is  like  the  writing  of  a  man  in  a  dream.  The 


GREEK  GENIUS 

critics  since  Coleridge  have  found  "inten 
tion"  and  "judgment"  and  "calculation"  of 
all  sorts  in  Shakespeare;  and  Professor  A. 
C.  Bradley  finds  that  the  intricacies  of  logic 
and  motive  in  Othello  have  been  studied  and 
thought  out.  Ah,  no !  they  have  never  been 
studied ;  they  have  been  improvised  with  the 
lightning  (and  sometimes  with  the  thunder 
and  lightning)  of  genius;  but  it  is  all  im 
provisation,  it  is  the  making  of  a  charade 
for  a  night's  phantasy.  The  great  charm  of 
it  all  comes  from  Shakespeare's  self,  and 
cannot  be  reduced  to  dramatic  elements. 

The  great  power  of  Shakespeare  is  that  he 
loves  his  characters.  This  is  the  persistent 
force  that  holds  us.  No  creator  has  ever 
loved  his  creatures  so  much  as  Shakespeare 
has  loved  these  characters.  This  is  the  cable 
that  draws  us.  Next  to  this,  and  perhaps  co 
equal  with  it  in  power,  is  the  hidden  chain  of 
contemplation  that  runs  invisible  and  courses 
at  the  back  of  each  play.  One  of  the  great 
est  thinkers  that  ever  lived  is  in  action.  He 
does  not  know  that  he  is  thinking;  he  is 
merely  recording  thoughts  that  arise  in  him. 
On  these  two  threads  of  a  continuous 
benevolence  and  a  consecutive  course  of 
thought  Shakespeare  hangs  one  dramatic 
device  after  another,  so  various  and  so  bril- 


SHAKESPEARE 

liant  that  we  have  the  drama,  as  it  were, 
thrown  in;  we  have  flashes  and  abysses  of 
drama, — more  than  we  bargained  for. 
Shakespeare  is  a  dramatist,  fifty  kinds  of  a 
dramatist  all  at  once ;  but  the  drama  is  only 
a  small  part  of  Shakespeare's  mind. 

There  is  one  light  in  which  Shakespeare  is 
unique :  he  is  gay.  He  is  the  only  great  poet 
who  is  gay ;  for  Homer  and  Dante  are  som 
bre.  Pure  happiness  is  the  rarest  thing  in 
poetry.  You  may  search  the  collections  of 
excerpts  not  quite  in  vain  for  a  verse  here 
and  there  that  is  not  sad;  but  poetic  senti 
ment  is  traditionally  and  habitually  gloomy. 
Yet  open  Shakespeare,  and  you  almost  al 
ways  open  upon  redundant,  shining  happi 
ness. 

Perhaps  in  studying  the  Shakespearian 
drama  one  ought  to  begin  with  the  chronicle- 
plays  ;  for  this  was  where  Shakespeare  him 
self  began.  A  cycle  of  historic  dramas  was 
in  existence  before  Shakespeare  appeared. 
The  old  chronicle-play  is  a  key  to  what  the 
Elizabethan  public  expected  and  enjoyed. 
The  interest  in  the  whole  lay  in  the  staging 
of  certain  familiar  heroes  and  kings,  who 
are  engaged  in  picturesque,  martial  and 
political  imbroglios.  It  was  a  Homeric  sort 
of  appeal  that  drew  people  to  these  shows, 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Talbot  and  Joan  of  Arc  and  the  procession 
of  old  English  kings  were  images  in  the 
public  mind. 

In  the  process  of  making  this  old  drama 
more  interesting,  Shakespeare  made  it  more 
coherent.  It  was  a  decorative,  popular, 
moving  panorama  of  bombast,  into  which 
he  threw  every  kind  of  genius.  If  you  take 
his  series  of  historical  plays,  from  Henry 
VI,  through  King  John,  Richard  II,  Rich- 
ird  HI,  Henry  IV,  Henry  V ,  and  Henry 
VIII,  they  seem  like  a  splendid  set  of 
tapestries.  The  later  plays  are  more  dra 
matically  articulated,  and  much  more  bril 
liant  in  every  way,  than  the  earlier  ones ;  yet 
their  appeal  remains  plastic  or  Homeric 
rather  than  dramatic.  The  fate-motive 
which  flickers  in  and  out  among  the  his 
torical  plays  was  dealt  with  lightly,  except 
in  Richard  HI,  where  it  took  the  centre  of 
the  stage  and  gave  to  that  play  its  early  and 
enduring  popularity.  On  the  whole,  how 
ever,  we  must  think  of  the  single  scene  as 
the  dramatic  unit  in  this  kind  of  drama. 
Each  play  strives  to  stage  a  set  of  stirring 
episodes  rather  than  a  story.  The  play 
wright  presents  street  fights,  small  proces 
sions,  alarums,  people  carried  on  the  stage 
in  arm-chairs  to  die  (the  first  inventor  of 


SHAKESPEARE 

this  feature  must  have  made  a  hit!), 
proclamations,  defiances,  magniloquent  dec 
lamations,  cursings,  boastings,  tumults,  and 
any  excuse  for  a  rumpus  on  the  stage.  All 
this  is  the  raw  material  out  of  which  Shake 
speare  evolved  his  art. 

If  you  read  a  few  of  the  stage  directions 
in  Henry  VI,  they  will  give  the  milieu  of  the 
old  chronicle-play : 

"The  Same  Before  the  Gates.  Skirmish 
ings.  Talbot  pursues  the  Dauphin,  drives 
him  in,  and  exit ;  then  enter  Joan  La  Pucelle, 
driving  Englishmen  before  her,  and  exit 
after  them.  Then  re-enter  Talbot."  Again  : 
"Enter  Talbot,  Bedford,  Burgundy  and 
Forces,  with  scaling-ladders,  their  drums 
beating  a  dead  march."  Again:  "The 
French  leap  over  the  walls  in  their  shirts," 
etc. 

The  rapidity  of  Shakespeare's  develop 
ment  is  the  startling  part  of  him.  For  if 
Henry  VI  is  Giotto,  Henry  IV  is  Michelan 
gelo  and  Paul  Veronese.  The  immense 
license  of  the  Elizabethan  stage  was  what 
Shakespeare  needed;  and  out  of  it  he  grew, 
unchastened,  unconscious  of  boundary  or 
law,  ever  pursuing  his  latest  thought.  The 


GREEK  GENIUS 

power  that  descended  upon  him  was  a  power 
of  coherent  excitement,  which  came  and 
went  at  its  own  will.  He  seems  not  to  have 
known  the  difference  between  writing  with 
inspiration  and  writing  without  inspiration. 
Other  poets  have  lived  in  a  like  ignorance  of 
their  own  moods.  Wordsworth,  for  in 
stance,  passed  from  divinity  to  dulness  with 
out  being  aware  of  it.  The  difference  be 
tween  the  two  men  is  that  Wordsworth 
believed  that  all  he  wrote  was  inspired; 
whereas  Shakespeare  apparently  regarded 
all  his  own  compositions  as  a  harmless  kind 
of  rubbish. 

In  Shakespeare's  case  the  poet  was  subject 
to  so  many  kinds  of  inspiration  that  when 
one  stopped,  another  was  apt  to  begin ;  and 
we  ourselves  who  read  him  are  whirled  away 
with  the  new  force,  not  knowing  where  we 
are  or  how  we  are  being  dealt  with.  In  the 
play  of  King  John  the  story  proceeds  at  a 
jog-trot  till  the  scene  in  which  King  John 
instructs  Hubert  to  kill  little  Prince  Arthur. 
Here  for  one  moment  there  falls  on  the 
scene  an  immense  seriousness,  like  a  blast 
out  of  Macbeth: 

King.    Thou  art  his  keeper. 

Hubert.  And  I'll  keep  him  so, 


SHAKESPEARE 

That  he  shall  not  offend  your  majesty. 
King.  Death. 

Hubert.    My  lord. 
King.  A  grave. 

Hubert.  He  shall  not  live. 

King.  Enough. 

I  could  be  merry  now.    Hubert,  I  love 

thee; 

Well,  I'll  not  say  what  I  intend  for  thee: 
Remember.     (To  the  Queen.)     Madam, 

fare  you  well : 

I'll  send  those  powers  o'er  to  your 
majesty. 

Again,  in  the  same  play,  there  is  a  sort  of 
divine  beauty  in  the  scene  between  Hubert 
and  little  Arthur;  and  this  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  little  Arthur  is  a  monster,  not  like 
a  boy  in  the  least,  and  talks  as  no  boy  ever 
talked.  While  Shakespeare  was  writing  the 
historical  plays  his  talent  developed  rapidly, 
spontaneously,  and  in  all  directions  at  once. 
He  found  himself  among  hurricanes,  and 
he  let  them  blow ;  among  zephyrs,  and  he  let 
them  breathe  or  die  at  their  will.  This  was 
ever  his  way. 

In  the  third  act  of  Hamlet  a  dramatic 
gust  dies  out  as  mysteriously  as  the  strange 
blast  of  feeling  arises  about  the  little  boy  in 


GREEK  GENIUS 

King  John.  From  the  opening  of  the  play, 
down  to  the  scene  between  Hamlet  and  his 
mother,  we  are  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
greatest  kind  of  drama.  It  is  a  fate-drama, 
as  powerful  as  the  Agamemnon  of  ^Eschy- 
lus.  Our  souls  are  shaken  with  its  reality. 
This  religious  interest  comes  to  its  climax 
in  Hamlet's  sudden  vision  of  the  spectre 
which  his  mother  cannot  see.  The  woman, 
whose  whole  heart  has  been  torn  to  shreds 
by  her  son's  reproaches,  now  for  a  moment 
forgets  everything  except  her  terror  in  the 
discovery  that  Hamlet  is  really  mad.  This 
is  a  climax  out  of  the  supernatural  into  the 
natural,  such  as  no  one  except  Shakespeare 
was  ever  capable  of.  The  scene  is  as  great 
as  anything  in  human  literature.  Then 
Shakespeare  gets  tired  of  the  Ghost.  He 
leaves  the  poor  Ghost  and  his  whole  story 
behind,  drops  it  as  a  dog  drops  a  bone  that 
he  has  wearied  of,  and  goes  gambolling 
upon  the  horizon.  From  this  point  onward 
Shakespeare  holds  the  play  together  with 
grave-diggers,  brilliant  soliloquies,  young 
men  in  frenzy  of  passion  who  come  to  grips 
over  a  girl's  bier,  duels,  murders,  and  a  dead 
march.  These  latter  scenes,  however,  which 
are  hustled  on  to  the  stage,  half  dressed,  to 
piece  out  the  performance,  are  as  magical  as 


SHAKESPEARE 

the  earlier  parts  of  the  drama.  No  wonder 
they  made  Shakespeare  forget  the  Ghost. 
Ophelia,  with  her  scraps  of  lyric  phrase 
which  have  the  power  of  Sappho  at  the  back 
of  them,  moves  upon  our  gaze.  We  receive 
dreadful  gleams  from  the  mystery  behind  all 
life,  — fragments  of  thought,  where  the  pas 
sion  of  forty  Dantes  is  put  into  accidents  of 
phrase.  No  wonder  the  Ghost  and  the  whole 
plot  and  scheme  of  the  play  were  withdrawn 
from  Shakespeare's  mind.  He  winds  all 
up  with  a  thoroughgoing  Elizabethan  hurly- 
burly.  The  main  interest,  it  must  be  con 
fessed,  is  never  recovered.  By  the  time  the 
curtain  falls  in  Hamlet  the  characters  have 
become  marionettes.  They  lie  about  the 
stage,  and  one  hardly  knows  which  is  the 
king. 

All  this  finale  of  Hamlet  is  very  inartistic. 
It  certainly  would  have  been  easy  at  least  to 
introduce  the  Ghost  for  a  last  triumphant, 
sorrowing,  magnificent  speech  over  the  dead 
bodies ;  and  this  would  have  tended  to  pull 
the  play  together.  But  the  Ghost  is  as  far 
from  Shakespeare's  mind  as  Helen  of 
Troy,  and  is  almost  as  completely  banished 
from  the  action.  What  is  it,  then,  that 
keeps  the  audience  in  the  theatre  during  the 
last  act  of  Hamlet  ?  Perhaps  it  is  something 

£155:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

that  cannot  be  stated  or  even  be  clearly  imag 
ined.  Yet  through  it  is  conveyed  the  opera 
tion  of  gigantic  Mind,  which  flashes  from 
Shakespeare  as  he  thinks  and  dreams  and 
proceeds  in  his  extraordinary  journey 
through  the  play.  It  would  seem  as  if  all 
the  lighting  and  staging  and  arrangements 
that  we  have  been  taught  to  consider  as  the 
essentials  of  dramatic  art  are  not  needed ; 
for  Shakespeare  produces  the  most  profound 
effects  without  any  of  them.  We  cannot 
find  his  vehicle.  We  are  left  standing  on 
the  edge  of  the  abyss,  not  knowing  how  we 
came  there,  or  we  are  lulled  in  the  music  of 
Elysium,  not  knowing  why  it  sounds. 


Ill 

EACH   PLAY  A  WORLD 

THERE  is  a  world  in  each  of  Shake 
speare's  plays,  —  the  world,  I  should 
say,— so  felt  and  so  seen  as  the  world  never 
was  seen  before  nor  could  be  felt  and  seen 
again,  even  by  Shakespeare.  Each  play  is  a 
little  local  universe.  His  stage  devices  he 
repeats,  but  the  atmosphere  of  a  play  is 
never  repeated.  Twelfth  Night,  As  You 
Like  It,  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice  are 
very  unlike  one  another.  The  unity  that  is 
in  each  of  them  results  from  unimaginable 
depths  of  internal  harmony  in  each.  The 
group  of  persons  in  any  play  (I  am  speak 
ing  of  the  good  plays)  forms  the  unity;  for 
the  characters  are  psychologically  inter 
locked  with  one  another.  Prospero  implies 
Caliban ;  Toby  Belch  implies  Malvolio ;  Shy- 
lock,  Antonio.  The  effects  of  all  imagina 
tive  art  result  from  subtle  implications  and 
adjustments.  The  public  recognises  these 
things  as  beauty,  but  cannot  analyse  them. 

£157:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

To  the  artist,  however,  they  have  been  the 
bricks  and  mortar  out  of  which  the  work 
was  builded.  We  feel,  for  instance,  in  the 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  that  the  fairies 
are  somehow  correlative  to  the  artisans. 
They  are  made  out  of  a  complementary 
chemical.  On  the  other  hand,  Theseus  and 
Demetrius  and  Hippolyta,  in  the  same  play, 
are  lay  figures  which  set  off  as  with  a  foil 
both  the  fairies  and  the  artisans.  Theseus, 
Hippolyta,  and  Demetrius  are  marionettes 
which  give  intellect  and  importance  to  Bot 
tom  and  Flute,  and  lend  body  and  life  to  the 
tiny  fairies.  All  this  miraculous  subtlety  of 
understanding  on  Shakespeare's  part  is  un 
conscious.  He  has  had  no  recipe,  no  metier. 
The  colouring  of  each  play,  its  humour, 
its  mood,  is  Shakespeare's  mood  as  he  wrote 
the  play.  The  mood  of  desperate  philosophic 
questioning  in  which  he  wrote  Hamlet  gives 
to  the  play  its  only  unity.  So  Macbeth  and 
King  Lear  are  each  beclouded  by  its  own 
kind  of  passionate  speculation.  The  story  is, 
in  each  case,  a  mere  thread  to  catch  the  crys 
tals  from  an  overcharged  atmosphere  of 
feeling.  The  tragedy  of  Lear  is  loftier, 
more  abstract  in  thought,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  hotly  human  in  feeling  than  Mac 
beth.  It  is  in  these  worlds  of  mood  that  we 


SHAKESPEARE 

must  seek  Shakespeare,  and  we  must  remain 
somewhat  moody  and  dreamy  ourselves  dur 
ing  the  search.  If  we  take  a  pair  of  tongs 
to  catch  him,  he  will  elude  us. 

In.  Othello,  Shakespeare  seems  to  have 
become  interested  in  working  out  the  de 
struction  of  a  noble  soul  by  means  of  a  stage 
demon,  a  sort  of  Richard  III  in  private  life 
and  without  ambition.  lago  has  no  motive, 
and  Othello  has  no  weakness ;  and  the  con 
junction  of  the  two  persons  is  artificial.  The 
idea  is,  nevertheless,  elaborated  with  diabol 
ical  cunning  on  the  playwright's  part,  and 
the  picture  of  Othello  remains  the  best  pic 
ture  of  jealousy  in  literature ;  so  that  the 
play  belongs  at  the  head  of  all  problem  plays. 
If  considered  seriously,  Othello  is  a  plea  for 
evil ;  but,  properly  taken,  it  is  a  sort  of  awful 
jcu  d' esprit.  An  odious  play  it  is,  false  to 
life  and  without  overtones.  Yet  so  gigantic 
is  the  mind  that  became  interested  in  this 
odious  problem,  and  so  thoroughly  equipped 
in  play-writing,  that  the  world,  after  three 
centuries,  goes  on  being  deceived  and  fas 
cinated  by  the  story.  Shakespeare's  interest 
in  the  play  is  a  playwright's  interest ;  and  he 
happens  not  to  weary  of  the  problem  or  to 
stray  from  his  main  theme  during  the  whole 
course  of  the  story.  Othello  is  like  a  Greek 


GREEK  GENIUS 

tragedy  in  that  it  is  a  masterpiece  of  artificial 
logic  with  a  bad  ending.  But,  of  course, 
Othello  is  extremely  unlike  the  Greek  from 
every  other  point  of  view;  as,  for  instance, 
it  has  many  characters,  a  complexity  of  plot, 
a  shifting  of  scene,  a  very  hard  and  non- 
lyrical  treatment,  and  endless  Elizabethan 
hurly-burly.  We  must  never  forget  that  the 
radical  difference  between  ancient  and  mod 
ern  drama  is  that  modern  drama  is  always 
unfolding  a  story.  We  are  kept  wondering 
how  the  thing  will  turn  out.  Ancient  drama, 
on  the  contrary,  takes  the  plot  for  granted 
and  focuses  our  whole  attention  upon  the 
treatment. 

The  unexampled  spontaneousness  of 
Shakespeare  is  due  to  the  flame  of  his  own 
curiosity,  that  hums  like  a  great  fire  through 
his  plays,  which  are  plays  only  incidentally, 
— they  are  really  studies,  the  memorandum 
books  of  a  man  who  is  thinking, — water- 
colour  sketches  made  by  an  amateur  for  his 
own  pleasure,  and  then  filed  away  never  to 
be  examined  again.  Shakespeare  has  lived 
in  them  as  he  wrote  them;  he  knows  not 
their  limits ;  he  has  no  intentions,  no  subse 
quent  curiosity.  In  spite  of  their  stage 
merits,  they  lose  by  being  acted,  as  things 
delicate  lose  by  being  placarded.  Compared 


SHAKESPEARE 

to  Moliere's  plays,  they  show  imperfection 
everywhere.  But  there  is  so  much  genius  in 
them,— as  much,  perhaps,  as  there  is  in  the 
rest  of  literature  outside  of  them,— that  they 
belong  to  a  superhuman  world.  No  one  ever 
wrote  like  this  before.  It  is  a  new  vehicle. 
There  exists  nothing  with  which  to  compare 
it.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the 
early  view  which  regarded  Shakespeare  as  a 
gifted  savage.  He  does  not  make  the  com 
promises  or  play  the  game  of  stage  art.  But 
he  is  following  law  of  some  sort,  or  he  could 
not  have  become  so  popular.  In  multifarious 
appeal  he  has  no  fellow.  The  child  loves 
his  wit,  the  youth  his  passion,  the  middle- 
aged  person  his  knowledge  of  the  world,  the 
old  man  his  metaphysical  power,  and  all  men 
his  benevolence. 

What  is  a  play  ?  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  am 
sure  that  these  things  are  much  more  than 
plays :  to  me  they  are  metaphysical  treatises. 
There  never  was  a  creature  like  Hamlet,  and 
never  can  be :  Hamlet  is  a  philosophical  gim- 
crack.  He  shows  the  mind  of  an  elderly 
man  set  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  boy  of  eigh 
teen,  and  turned  loose  in  a  tragic  situation. 
What  a  monstrous  apparatus  of  thought  is 
here  set  up!  There  never  was  a  man  like 
Macbeth,  and  there  never  can  be.  An  over- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

sensitive,  morbid,  middle-aged  recluse  com 
mits  a  brutal  murder  in  a  barbarous  Scotch 
castle,  and  then  gives  himself  the  horrors 
by  plunging  about  in  his  double  character  of 
bloody  borderer  and  lyric  hypochondriac. 
Men  are  not  like  that.  There  never  was  a 
man  like  Richard  III,  or  indeed  like  any 
other  complete  stage  villain.  The  stage  vil 
lain  is  a  comparatively  low  form  of  artificial 
device.  He  is  a  metaphysical  hypothesis, 
like  the  rest,  invented  for  purposes  of  dem 
onstration. 

Perhaps  we  ought,  in  dealing  with  this 
whole  subject,  to  begin  by  regarding  all 
stage-land,  from  wheels  and  pulleys  to  poetic 
metaphors,  as  a  congeries  of  things  that  are 
essentially  and  necessarily  false  and  make- 
believe,— elaborately  constructed  things, 
which,  properly  used,  flash  a  momentary  il 
lusion  of  truth  into  the  sympathetic  eye,  but 
which  will  not  stand  inspection,— no,  not 
for  a  moment.  The  people  who  write  essays 
on  Shakespeare's  characters,  treating  them 
as  real,  have  found  a  pretty  amusement, 
which  is  about  as  valuable  as  the  literary 
pastime  of  writing  imaginary  conversations 
between  famous  dead  people.  A  stage  char 
acter  is  always  merely  the  fragment  of  a 
picture.  Perhaps  only  a  profile  is  shown; 


SHAKESPEARE 

and  yet  its  duty  is  done  then  and  there.  No 
more  than  this  profile  of  the  man  ever  ex 
isted,  and  we  can  never  know  what  a  full 
view  of  the  face  might  reveal.  If  we  add 
to  Shakespeare's  sketch  by  tacking  on  a  bit 
of  our  own  imagination,  we  shall  produce  a 
strange  rag  doll,  just  as  the  writers  of  imag 
inary  conversations  produce  strange  rag 
dolls. 

When  we  come  to  King  Lear  we  are  in 
deep  waters.  In  this  play  the  passion  and 
the  tragedy  develop  so  naturally,  so  unex 
pectedly,  and  so  suddenly  out  of  -the  halcyon 
opening  of  the  drama  that  we  are  taken 
unaware.  The  clouds  gather  and  the  light 
ning  plays  about,  and,  lo!  we  are  in  the 
heights  and  depths  of  human  experience. 
But  how  did  we  get  there?  What  element 
has  done  this,  and  what  does  it  all  mean? 
Shakespeare  neither  knew  nor  cared.  Hid 
den  within  King  Lear,  as  in  Hamlet,  is  a 
terrific  metaphysical  apparatus,  a  psychom- 
eter  or  dynamo  of  passion.  It  sets  the 
machinery  of  our  hearts  in  motion.  The 
thing  has  been  inserted  into  our  minds  and 
works  its  own  will  upon  us.  The  comment, 
or  chorus  work,  which  in  Hamlet  and  in 
Macbeth  is  done  by  the  protagonists  them 
selves,  is  in  King  Lear  distributed  to  a 


GREEK  GENIUS 

jester,  a  pretended  madman  and  a  friend  in 
disguise.  Lear  himself  is  not  a  double  con 
sciousness  like  Hamlet  or  Macbeth,  but  a 
passionate,  feeble-minded,  ignorant  old  man, 
who  becomes  pathetic  chiefly  through  his 
age.  But  why  is  this  pathos  so  deep?  And 
why  do  the  little  dogs,  Tray,  Blanche,  and 
Sweetheart,  move  us  so  profoundly?  I  sup 
pose  that  Shakespeare  himself  has  been 
greatly  moved  as  he  lived  through  the  scenes 
in  all  these  plays.  He  has  not  known  just 
why  the  plots  worked  out  as  they  did.  He 
was  evidently  experimenting,  and  found  that 
his  themes  worked  up  to  these  climaxes 
automatically.  In  Timon  of  Athens  he  wor 
ries  and  rages,  yet  nothing  will  come  of  it. 
In  Coriolanns  he  works  like  a  Trojan,  and  is 
as  dull  as  Corneille. 

If  Shakespeare  had  only  been  an  artist 
like  Leonardo,  who  was  always  calculating 
effects  and  analysing  causes,  we  might  know 
something  of  his  art.  But  the  fact  is  that 
he  knew  nothing  about  the  matter  himself, 
and  does  not  aid  us.  He  does  not  know 
what  has  happened.  Let  us  take  an  illustra 
tion  of  his  ingenuousness.  He  reads  Mon 
taigne's  essay  on  Sebondus, — that  great, 
long,  impassioned  essay,  in  which  Mon 
taigne  demonstrates  the  impotency  of  man, 


SHAKESPEARE 

his  inability  to  know  anything  whatever,  his 
helplessness,  and  the  absurdity  of  all  human 
pretence  to  intellect.  It  is  Essay  No.  XII 
in  the  Second  Book,  and  we  can  all  follow 
in  Everyman's  Library  the  very  text  which 
Shakespeare  pondered.  Shakespeare  read 
this  essay  with  a  devouring  curiosity,  and  ab 
sorbed  its  ideas, — which,  after  all,  are  ideas 
that  are  never  long  absent  from  any  thought 
ful  mind.  The  "Quc  sqai-je?"  of  Mon 
taigne  might  be  Shakespeare's  own  motto, 
were  not  Shakespeare  too  profoundly  un 
conscious  to  have  any  motto.  He  reads 
Montaigne,  and  for  a  time  he  becomes  Mon 
taigne.  For  a  time  he  sees  the  whole  uni 
verse  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  sceptic; 
and  while  this  influence  is  upon  him  he 
becomes  interested  in  refurbishing  the  old 
stock  play  of  Hamlet.  Before  he  is  aware, 
he  has  begun  to  use  Hamlet  as  a  stalking- 
horse  for  Montaigne's  philosophy.  He  does 
not  invent  Hamlet  as  Goethe  invents  Mephis- 
topheles.  Hamlet  is  merely  the  result  of 
the  different  problems  and  occupations  of 
Shakespeare's  private  mind.  Shakespeare's 
primary  interest  is  an  interest  in  life,  not  an 
interest  in  play-writing  or  in  philosophy; 
these  things  are  subsidiary  toys,  algebraical 
signs,  to  him.  And  when,  as  in  Hamlet,  it 


GREEK  GENIUS 

turns  out  that  the  playwright  has  made  a 
monster,  he  never  stops  to  consider  the  mat 
ter.  For  Shakespeare  does  not  know  that 
his  own  talent  is  a  talent  for  thinking,  that 
his  own  chief  interest  lies  in  speculation. 
He  thinks  he  is  telling  a  story,  and  he  be 
lieves  that  all  these  ideas  are  in  the  story: 
he  sees  them  in  the  tale  itself. 

There  are  writers  who  write  for  them 
selves.  They  have  a  curiosity,  they  have  a 
passion  for  study  and  for  statement,  and  a 
joy  in  the  process  of  writing.  Their  writ 
ings  are  personal  memoirs.  Saint-Simon 
and  Samuel  Pepys  are  men  of  genius  by 
reason  of  the  passionate  interest  they  take  in 
their  themes.  They  give  us  the  very  heart 
of  a  man  on  every  page.  Writing  is  to  them 
the  same  thing  as  living.  It  is  articulate 
living.  Now,  curiously  enough,  Shakespeare 
belongs  to  this  class  of  writers.  While  using 
a  most  abstract  and  impersonal  vehicle,  he 
became  early  in  life  so  interested  in  his 
themes  that  his  personal  mind  was  absorbed 
into  his  work,  and  his  personal  experiences 
and  reflections  were  at  the  disposal  of  his 
artistic  requirements.  The  vehicle  which  he 
used  is  ostensibly  an  abstract  vehicle,  perhaps 
the  most  abstract  literary  form  that  exists; 
for  the  author  of  a  play  has  apparently  no 


SHAKESPEARE 

voice  at  all.  And  yet  Shakespeare  expressed 
his  most  intimate  personal  experiences  with 
such  fluency  that  you  might  say  his  vehicle 
rules  him.  As  the  man  in  the  street  rumi 
nates  and  is  greatly  at  the  mercy  of  accident 
for  the  turn  in  his  thought,  so  Shakespeare. 
His  theme  runs  away  with  him  in  the  good 
plays,  and  refuses  to  run  away  with  him  in 
the  bad  plays.  He  has  so  many  different 
planes  of  brilliancy  that  he  can  "pull  off,"  as 
they  say,  almost  anything;  but  he  is  never 
aiming  at  anything  in  particular  when  he 
begins.  For  instance,  in  the  Taming  of  the 
Shrew  he  has  on  the  background  of  his  can 
vas  a  superficial  old  Italian  comedy  of  man 
ners  and  of  horse-play.  He  botches  a 
boisterous,  amusing  and  not  beautiful  play 
out  of  it.  How  coarse  is  his  brush  here! 
The  subject  has  amused  him  and  excited  his 
wit ;  but  first-rate  comedy  cannot  be  made 
out  of  this  material,— at  least,  so  it  seems. 
In  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Shakespeare's  enor 
mous  romanticism  is  excited,  as  it  is  in  An 
tony  and  Cleopatra.  The  subject  enchants 
him.  There  is  a  dream  quality  in  all  he 
writes  here  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
popularity  of  these  plays.  But  he  is  still  at 
the  mercy  of  his  dream.  In  Julius  Ccesar 
the  interest  of  the  play  fails  after  the  assas- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

sination ;  the  drama  breaks  in  two.  Why  did 
not  Shakespeare  use  the  assassination  as  a 
climax,  and  so  save  this  play?  Because  his 
old  training  in  chronicle-plays  suggested  an 
other  course.  When  Shakespeare  sits  down 
to  write  a  play  about  Julius  Caesar,  he  seizes 
North's  Plutarch  in  his  left  hand  and  begins 
to  write  immediately.  He  is  not  thinking  of 
how  to  make  a  drama.  He  is  thinking  about 
the  man  Caesar  and  his  history.  And  some 
French  writer,  whose  name  I  forget,  has 
said  that  the  few  words  spoken  by  Caesar  in 
this  play  give  the  best  picture  of  Caesar  that 
exists.  In  Winter's  Tale  the  whole  action 
is  broken  in  two  by  one  of  those  twenty- 
years-after,  dismal  arrangements  which  are 
so  hard  to  listen  to;  but  Shakespeare's  own 
romantic  feeling  saves  the  play.  It  is  saved 
by  Shakespeare's  personal  charm,  by  his 
love  of  Perdita  and  of  the  pastoral  scenes, 
by  his  passionate  sentiment  for  Hermione 
and  the  reconciliation,  by  his  enjoyment  of 
Paulina  and  the  baby.  What  Shakespeare 
does  is  always  makeshift,— or  rather  inspira 
tion.  Thus,  Winter's  Tale,  which  begins 
coldly  and  in  one  of  his  worst  manners, 
turns,  through  the  turn  of  the  plot,  and  quite 
unconsciously  to  the  poet,  into  a  fervent 
palinode  in  praise  of  conjugal  love.  It  is 


SHAKESPEARE 

shot  through  with  personal  emotion,  and 
drips  with  the  dews  of  dawn.  Some  people 
can  hardly  bear  the  excessive  sentiment  of 
Winter's  Talc;  and  I  confess  that  the  recon 
veyance  of  Hermione  to  the  breast  of  Leon- 
tes  taxes  my  powers  of  consumption.  But 
Shakespeare  himself  revelled  in  this.  Shake 
speare  had,  indeed,  a  school-girl  side,  the 
side  that  delights  in  keepsakes,  in  twin  cher 
ries,  in  long-treasured,  innocent,  early,  pas 
sionate  thoughts  of  happiness.  The  intensity 
of  his  feeling  increases  with  the  innocence 
of  the  matter  in  hand.  This  virginity  of 
feeling,  which  gave  us  Cordelia  and  Des- 
demona,  Ophelia  and  Miranda,  governs  the 
climax  of  Winter's  Tale. 

It  has  become  customary  to  say  that  we 
know  nothing  of  Shakespeare  the  man.  But 
indeed  we  know  his  mind  more  intimately 
than  we  know  the  mind  of  any  other  historic 
person.  The  man  himself  we  know  :  it  is  his 
method  that  defies  our  comprehension.  His 
method  is  not  an  intellectual  thing  at  all,  and 
has  never  been  reduced  to  a  shape  in  which 
it  can  be  studied.  His  method  is  a  part  of 
his  digestion  and  of  his  daily  life.  The 
thing  he  laid  his  hand  to  he  transmutes.  At 
an  earlier  or  later  period  of  his  life.  King 
Lear  would  have  turned  under  his  hands 

091! 


GREEK  GENIUS 

into  a  rural  comedy,  or  into  a  golden  drama, 
like  The  Merchant  of  Venice. 

Power  in  expression  arises  out  of  artistic 
unity,  whether  in  comedy  or  tragedy ;  and  in 
Shakespeare's  good  plays  the  whole  volume 
of  the  drama  rolls  along  in  its  own  envelope, 
and  with  a  natural  flow  like  a  tide  of  the 
ocean.  Every  word  and  metaphor,  every 
character  and  incident,  is  drenched  in  a  par 
ticular  tint  and  cloud-colour.  The  whole 
thing  is  like  a  solid  body,  so  unitary  is  its 
complexity;  and  as  it  rolls  it  invades  our 
minds  with  the  force  of  nature — our  own 
nature.  The  law  of  its  behaviour  suits  our 
mind  so  exactly  that  the  fable  seems  to  be  a 
part  of  ourselves:  a  child  can  understand  it. 
This  can  be  said  of  Shakespeare  only  at  his 
easiest  and  best,  for  there  is  also  a  Shake 
speare  who  lumbers  and  jolts  about,  poses, 
makes  bad  jokes,  breaks  off  in  the  middle,  is 
obscene  and  contradictory,  dull  and  horrid. 
For  Shakespeare  was  the  most  careless 
writer  that  ever  lived,  and  it  is  this  careless 
ness  which  left  him  so  open  to  the  whisper 
ings  of  the  Muse. 

Even  the  bad  plays  have  individuality; 
each  has  a  psychological  character  of  its 
own ;  they  do  not  resemble  one  another  in 
spirit.  And  the  Shakespeare  who  moves  in 


SHAKESPEARE 

and  out  of  the  bad  plays,  appearing  and  dis 
appearing  like  a  silent  scene-shifter  who  is 
not  meant  to  be  observed,  resembles  the 
Shakespeare  of  the  great  plays  in  the  length 
of  his  stride.  He  is  not  always  radiant  or  at 
home  in  the  play.  He  is  often  queer,  sour, 
and  low-minded,  like  a  sick  man.  We  recog 
nise  his  mind,  however,  through  its  preoccu 
pation  with  abstract  thoughts  expressed  in 
dazzling,  concrete  images. 


IV 

TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA 

THERE  is  a  history  of  criticism  which 
will  go  on  forever,  and  Shakespeare's 
relation  to  it  is  indubitably  very  important. 
But  Shakespeare's  direct  influence  upon  the 
great  body  of  men  who  know  nothing  about 
this  whole  branch  of  learning  is  what  makes 
him  Shakespeare.  The  Gospels  are  not  en 
crusted  in  theology,  because  biblical  criticism 
has  never  adhered  to  the  New  Testament. 
So  literary  and  dramatic  criticism  do  not 
stick  to  Shakespeare.  There  is  some  sort  of 
vis  major  behind  the  Gospels,  and  there  is  a 
vis  major  behind  much  of  Shakespeare 
which  nothing  touches.  This  power  draws 
and  fascinates  the  scholar;  it  chains  him  to 
his  desk  and  to  his  thesis;  it  does  not,  as  a 
rule,  liberate  his  intellect.  The  scholar 
whose  imagination  is  alive  is  a  rarity.  In 
deed,  scholarship  proverbially  kills  the  imag 
ination;  and  therefore  in  striving  to  find 
what  is  our  own  in  Shakespeare — who  is  the 

£173:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

greatest  storehouse  of  imagination  in  the 
world— we  should  be  indifferent  to  scholar 
ship.  Everyone  of  us  has  a  personal  share 
in  this  wealth,  a  special  relation  to  this 
mountainous  loadstone  of  attracting  intel 
lect.  No  matter  what  we  find,  we  cannot 
carry  it  away,  nor  can  we  ever  force  anyone 
else  to  perceive  and  value  our  discovery  ex 
actly  as  we  do. 

Coleridge  discovered  two  different  Shake- 
speares  in  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  This 
is  the  right  spirit  in  which  to  read  Shake 
speare, — this  free-handed  plundering  of  his 
meanings.  We  should  read  Shakespeare  for 
pleasure,  and  only  for  pleasure.  The  plays 
were  meant  to  be  gay  trifles,  the  perfume 
and  the  suppliance  of  a  minute.  Music  and 
painting  and  poetry  yield  up  their  meanings 
in  flashes  and  by  accident;  and  just  here  is 
where  the  critics  go  mad :  for  they  think  to 
bore  into  the  meaning  of  poetry  as  a  mouse 
bores  into  a  cheese.  A  man  who  sits  down 
to  read  The  Tempest  for  six  months  at  a 
stretch  is  sure  to  make  some  discovery  about 
the  play.  The  professional  scholars  who 
attack  ancient  poetry  and  lost  religions  in 
this  spirit  of  conquest  are  always  rewarded : 
they  find  something.  They  develop  a  hobby, 
a  thesis,  an  idee  fixe.  They  become  inter- 
r.  1741] 


SHAKESPEARE 

ested  in  a  discovery  of  some  sort;  and  the 
life  of  the  subject  closes  its  portals. 

So,  then,  let  us  be  unscholarly,  careless, 
and  above  all  let  us  take  no  stock  in  our  own 
discoveries,  but  regard  the  world  as  Dream 
Stuff,  while  we  examine  the  extremely  un 
pleasant  play  of  Troilus  and  Crcssida, — a 
play  that  can  never  have  been  good;  for  it 
has  no  humour,  no  dramatic  force,  no  sus 
tained  beauty.  It  has  neither  action  nor 
plot,  neither  wit  nor  intention ;  and  it  is  per 
vaded  by  a  low  moral  tone.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
horrid  jumble  of  distasteful  impressions. 
And  yet  the  play  is  intimately  and  con 
vincingly  Shakespeare's  own.  My  reason 
for  taking  it  up  is  that  we  seem  to  find  in  it 
broken  bits  of  Shakespeare's  art,  botches  and 
scraps  of  him,  often  so  crudely  done  as  to 
lay  bare  the  artist's  intention  without  accom 
plishing  his  end.  By  studying  these  stray 
passages  we  seem  to  get  some  insight  into 
the  way  the  poet's  mind  worked. 

Troilus  and  Crcssida  is  supposed  to  con 
cern  the  Trojan  War;  but  no  war  seems  to 
be  in  progress  in  it.  Certain  characters,  or 
caricatures,  wander  on  and  off  the  stage,  or 
offend  us  by  their  different  breaches  of  taste. 
The  dressing  up  of  the  Homeric  heroes  in 
Elizabethan  costume  produces  burlesque. 
C'75] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

The  principal  characters  suggest  the  oper 
etta,  and  the  minor  ones  the  music-hall. 
Ajax  appears  as  a  sort  of  Bardolph  or 
Pistol ;  Pandarus  as  an  Andrew  Aguecheek ; 
Thersites  as  a  Shakespearian  clown — e.g., 
Launcelot  Gobbo,  Autolycus.  Helen  is  ad 
dressed  by  Paris  as  "Nell."  Ulysses  walks 
upon  the  stage  reading  a  letter.  Hector,  in 
speaking  to  Menelaus,  refers  to  Helen  as 
"your  quondam  wife/'  to  which  Menelaus 
replies,  "Name  her  not  now,  sir;  she's  a 
deadly  theme."  "O  pardon,  I  offend,"  says 
Hector.  We  find  it  hard  to  credit  Shake 
speare  with  the  worst  parts  of  the  dialogue ; 
but  the  man  who  adopted  and  republished 
the  lines  is  almost  as  much  a  reprobate  as  the 
man  who  wrote  them. 

There  are  many  speeches  in  the  play  that 
no  one  but  Shakespeare  could  have  written, 
— not  a  juvenile  Shakespeare,  either,  but  the 
Shakespeare  of  King  Lear  and  Macbeth,  the 
full-grown,  miracle-minded  man.  These 
good  things  detach  themselves  like  new  paint 
from  an  old  canvas ;  but  the  canvas  is  cov 
ered  with  truly  Shakespearian  work,— only 
bad,  unpleasant  work, — so  that  some  schol 
ars  have  supposed  that  Troilus  and  Cressida 
was  a  youthful  piece  worked  over  by  the 
mature  artist.  Whether  the  play  be  old  or 


SHAKESPEARE 

new,  and  whether  the  kernel  of  it  be  Shake 
speare's  own  or  another's,  we  can  observe  in 
it  the  working  of  Shakespeare's  intelligence. 
Not  only  is  the  awakened  great  genius  there, 
but  the  deboshed  penny-a-liner  is  there  also, 
all  through  the  play.  Besides  these  two 
men  there  is,  here  and  there,  a  half- 
awakened  Shakespeare,  a  boozy,  indifferent 
Orpheus,  who  gropes  past  his  thought  and 
lunges  on,  sometimes  swinging  out  a  phrase 
like  a  wreath  of  roses  and  then  again  heav 
ing  a  brick.  All  the  beauties  in  the  play  are 
detached  and  scrappy  things.  That  Shake 
speare  took  no  coherent  interest  in  the  story 
whenever  he  wrote  it,  or  wrote  at  it,— of 
this  we  feel  sure. 

The  play  opens  with  a  couple  of  scenes  in 
the  pot-house  vein  between  Pandarus,  Troi- 
lus,  and  Cressida;  and  then  the  Grecian 
leaders  come  on  with  a  few  long  speeches  in 
Shakespeare's  most  magnificent  rhetoric, 
larded  with  his  most  personal  and  peculiar 
faults.  Indeed,  in  this  play  most  of  his  bold 
misuses  of  language  are  infelicitous.  But 
the  wreaths  of  roses  are  there  also.  As  to 
the  meaning  of  the  play,  we  should  gather 
from  the  long  opening  speeches  that  the  plot 
was  to  have  something  to  do  with  the  perils 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  a  divided  authority;  for  this  idea  is  given 
out  by  Agamemnon  and  then  expanded  and 
worked  up  by  Ulysses  in  two  speeches,  of 
which  the  first  is  didactic  and  stately,  some 
what  like  Portia's  on  the  quality  of  mercy, 
and  the  second  is  a  description,  in  a  vein  to 
make  Homer  weep,  of  the  buffoonery  prac 
tised  in  the  tent  of  Achilles.  The  perils  of  a 
divided  authority  provide  a  philosophic 
theme  on  which  the  profound  psychologist 
Shakespeare  has  reflected  much,  and  the 
poetry  comes  boiling  out  of  him  as  from  a 
spring.  Then  it  stops. 

Thersites,  the  most  degraded  and  most 
monstrous  of  Shakespeare's  clowns,  is  now 
given  his  whack  at  the  audience,  and  Ajax 
is  presented  as  the  stupid  man.  Then  fol 
lows  a  family  scene  between  Hector,  Troilus, 
and  Priam,  in  which  the  merits  of  the  war 
are  discussed.  Hector  happens  to  remark 
of  Helen :  "She  is  not  worth  what  she  doth 
cost  the  holding."  This  awakens,  or  half 
awakens,  the  sleeping  philosopher  in  Shake 
speare,  and  he  gropes  in  his  dream  for  his 
favourite  thought:  "There's  nothing  good 
or  bad  but  thinking  makes  it  so."  This 
thought  always  swims  in  deep  waters ;  it  is  a 
most  difficult  thought  to  express,  as  the 
C'783 


SHAKESPEARE 

Pragmatists  have  recently  found;  and 
Shakespeare's  delivery  of  it  upon  the  pres 
ent  occasion  is  so  clumsy  that  we  hardly 
know  where  he  stands  on  the  argument. 

Troilus.    What  is  aught  but  as  'tis  valued  ? 

Hector.    But  value  dwells  not  in  particular 

will; 

It  holds  his  estimate  and  dignity 
As  well  wherein  'tis  precious  of  itself 
As  in  the  prizer.    JTis  mad  idolatry 
To  make  the  service  greater  than  the  god, 
And  the  will  dotes  that  is  inclinable 
To  what  infectiously  itself  affects, 
Without  some  image  of  the  affected  merit. 

Here,  as  so  often  in  Shakespeare,  every 
thing  both  on  and  off  the  stage  is  held  up 
while  the  master  talks  to  himself  in  his  own 
half-intelligible  lingo  about  the  secret  prob 
lems  of  his  thought.  There  must  some 
where  exist,  thinks  Shakespeare,  a  reality  of 
which  our  thought  is  the  image.  A  very 
similar  passage  occurs  when  Troilus  discov 
ers  the  perfidy  of  Cressida  and  proceeds  to 
reason  in  an  uninspired  way  about  abstrac 
tions.  His  Cressida  could  not  act  thus ;  then 
there  must  be  two  Cressidas : 

£179:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Troilus.  .  .  .  O  madness  of  discourse, 
That  cause  sets  up  with  and  against  thy 
self! 

Bi-f old  authority !  where  reason  can  re 
volt 

Without  perdition,  and  loss  assume  all 
reason. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  all  through 
Shakespeare  we  come  upon  passages  which 
we  must  read  twice,  because  we  must  find 
the  key  to  them;  and  the  key  is  generally 
something  profound.  A  page  or  two  earlier 
in  this  play  Cressida  says:  "Blind  fear 
that,  seeing  reason  leads,  finds  safer  footing 
than  blind  reason  stumbling  without  fear. 
To  fear  the  worst  oft  cures  the  worst."  His 
mind  is  so  full  of  these  abstractions  that  he 
tumbles  them  out  sometimes  in  paradox. 
In  moments  of  great  excitement  he  makes 
them  sing.  But  in  Troilus  and  Cressida 
there  is  nothing  to  stimulate  him  to  the  pitch 
where  philosophy  turns  into  music. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  easier  thoughts 
and  more  familiar  themes  which  are  the 
give-and-take  of  drama  live  so  within  his 
mastery  that  any  pebble  sets  them  off,  as, 
for  instance,  the  thought  of  honour.  At  the 


SHAKESPEARE 

close  of  the  family  scene  Troilus  speaks  with 
the  tongue  of  Henry  V : 

Troilus.    Why,  there  you  touched  the  life  of 

our  design : 

Were  it  not  glory  that  we  more  affected 
Than  the  performance  of  our  heaving 

spleens, 

I  would  not  wish  a  drop  of  Trojan  blood 
Spent  more  in  her  defence.     But,  worthy 

Hector, 

She  is  a  theme  of  honour  and  renown, 
A  spur  to  valiant  and  magnanimous 

deeds, 
Whose  present  courage  may  beat  down 

our  foes, 

And  fame,  in  time  to  come,  canonise  us : 
For,  I  presume,  brave  Hector  would  not 

lose 

So  rich  advantage  of  a  promis'd  glory 
As  smiles  upon  the  forehead  of  this 

action 
For  the  wide  world's  revenue. 

Immediately  upon  this  fluent  and  appro 
priate  climax  there  follows  more  Thersites, 
and  a  scene  in  which  Ajax  is  made  the  butt 
of  sham  flattery, — all  most  truly  Shake 
spearian  and  most  truly  horse-play. 

r.180 


GREEK  GENIUS 

We  now  approach  the  great  scene  of  the 
play,  in  which  Ulysses  endeavours  to  per 
suade  Achilles  to  abandon  his  ill-humour 
and  fight.  It  seems  impossible  that  Shake 
speare  should  have  read  any  translation  of 
Homer,  though  he  is  supposed  to  have  read 
Chapman;  for  Shakespeare  imagines  that 
Achilles'  wrath  was  the  result  of  sheer, 
motiveless  ill-temper.  He  neglects  the  splen 
did  dramatic  reason  for  the  wrath,  namely, 
that  the  girl  Briseis  had  been  reft  from 
Achilles  by  Agamemnon.  Ulysses,  then, 
after  gaining  the  attention  of  Achilles  by  a 
ruse,  approaches  him  with  an  argument 
based  upon  a  philosophic  abstraction  so  in 
tellectual  that  Plato  would  have  pricked  up 
his  ears  at  it.  But  no  one  except  a  profes 
sional  casuist  would  be  apt  to  guess  what 
Ulysses  was  talking  about : 

Ulysses.  A  strange  fellow  here 

Writes  me :  That  man,  how  dearly  ever 

parted, 

How  much  in  having,  or  without  or  in, 
Cannot  make  boast  to  have  that  which  he 

hath, 
Nor  feels  not  what  he  owes,  but  by 

reflection ; 


SHAKESPEARE 

As  when  his  virtues  shining  upon  others 
Heat  them,  and  they  retort  that  heat  again 
To  the  first  giver. 

Achilles'  reply  surprises  us,  because  it  is 
academic,  lacking  all  heat  and  passion.  He 
thinks  Ulysses'  idea  is  very  suggestive,  very 
helpful. 

Achilles.         This  is  not  strange,  Ulysses. 
The  beauty  that  is  borne  here  in  the  face 
The  bearer  knows  not,  but  commends 

itself 

To  others'  eyes:  nor  doth  the  eye  itself, 
That  most  pure  spirit  of  sense,  behold 

itself, 
Not  going  from  itself;  but  eye  to  eye 

oppos'd 

Salutes  each  other  with  each  other's  form : 
For  speculation  turns  not  to  itself 
Till  it  hath  travell'd,  and  is  married  there 
Where  it  may  see  itself.    This  is  not 

strange  at  all. 

Ulysses  "distinguishes,"  as  the  logicians 
would  say : 

Ulysses.    I  do  not  strain  at  the  position, 
It  is  familiar,  but  at  the  author's  drift.  .  .  . 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Ulysses  now  develops  his  proposition, 
which  is  that  men  receive  their  own  spiritual 
fulfilment  through  the  effect  which  they 
produce  upon  others.  The  thought  here 
reaches  its  last  attenuation.  The  two  heroes 
seem  to  be  absorbed  in  bending  over  a  game 
of  metaphysical  checkers.  Then  Ulysses 
launches  his  great,  beautiful  exhortation, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  speeches  in  all 
Shakespeare : 

Ulysses.     Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  at 

his  back, 

Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion ; 
A  great-siz'd  monster  of  ingratitudes : 
Those  scraps  are  good  deeds  past;  which 

are  devour'd 

As  fast  as  they  are  made,  forgot  as  soon 
As  done :  perseverance,  dear  my  lord, 
Keeps  honour  bright:  to  have  done,  is  to 

hang 

Quite  out  of  fashion,  like  a  rusty  mail 
In  monumental  mockery.    Take  the 

instant  way ; 

For  honour  travels  in  a  strait  so  narrow, 
Where  one  but  goes  abreast :  keep  then 

the  path ; 

For  emulation  hath  a  thousand  sons 
That  one  by  one  pursue:  if  you  give  way, 


SHAKESPEARE 

Or  hedge  aside  from  the  direct  forthright, 
Like  to  an  enter'd  tide,  they  all  rush  by, 
And  leave  you  hindmost ; 
Or,  like  a  gallant  horse  fall'n  in  first  rank, 
Lie  there  for  pavement  to  the  abject  rear, 
O'errun  and  trampled  on :  then  what  they 

do  in  present, 
Though  less  than  yours  in  past,  must 

o'ertop  yours ; 

For  time  is  like  a  fashionable  host 
That  slightly  shakes  his  parting  guest  by 

the  hand, 
And  with  his  arms  outstretch'd,  as  he 

would  fly, 

Grasps-in  the  comer :  welcome  ever  smiles, 
And  farewell  goes  out  sighing.    O,  let  not 

virtue  seek 

Remuneration  for  the  thing  it  was ; 
For  beauty,  wit, 
High  birth,  vigour  of  bone,  desert  in 

service, 

Love,  friendship,  charity,  are  subjects  all 
To  envious  and  calumniating  time. 
One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole 

world  kin, 
That  all  with  one  consent  praise  new-born 

gawds, 
Though  they  are  made  and  moulded  of 

things  past, 


GREEK  GENIUS 

And  give  to  dust  that  is  a  little  gilt 
More  laud  than  gilt  o'er-dusted. 
The  present  eye  praises  the  present  object : 
Then  marvel  not,  thou  great  and  complete 

man, 
That  all  the  Greeks  begin  to  worship 

Ajax; 
Since  things  in  motion  sooner  catch  the 

eye 
Than  what  not  stirs.    The  cry  went  once 

on  thee, 

And  still  it  might,  and  yet  it  may  again, 
If  thou  wouldst  not  entomb  thyself  alive, 
And  case  thy  reputation  in  thy  tent ; 
Whose  glorious  deeds,  but  in  these  fields 

of  late, 
Made  emulous  missions  'mongst  the  gods 

themselves, 
And  drave  great  Mars  to  faction. 

The  head  and  flow  of  eloquence  in  this 
speech  carries  Shakespeare  over  into  a  sense 
less  but  magnificent  eulogy  of  the  secret  ser 
vice  of  Agamemnon's  government,  through 
whose  clever  work  Achilles'  attachment  to 
one  of  Priam's  daughters  has  been  discov 
ered.  The  eloquence  is  checked  suddenly, 
however,  by  a  ditch  of  bad  taste,  almost  of 
obscenity,  and  ends  in  a  few  flat  lines.  Such 


SHAKESPEARE 

is  Shakespeare,— so  unconscious,  so  indif 
ferent  ;  so  at  the  mercy  of  what  is  in  progress 
before  him  and  within  him ;  so  unprincipled 
in  his  art;  so  gifted  in  his  mind. 

There  is  yet  another  page  of  the  play  on 
which  shines  a  genius  like  that  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet.  Something  in  the  sudden  and 
enforced  parting  of  Troilus  and  Cressida 
reminds  Shakespeare  of  the  tender  agony  of 
such  partings,  which  he  must  himself  have 
known  or  he  could  not  have  written : 

Troilus.        ..... 

We  two,  that  with  so  many  thousand 

sighs 
Did  buy  each  other,  must  poorly  sell 

ourselves 
With  the  rude  brevity  and  discharge  of 

one. 

Injurious  time  now  with  a  robber's  haste 
Crams  his  rich  thievery  up,  he  knows  not 

how : 

As  many  farewells  as  be  stars  in  heaven, 
With  distinct  breath  and  consigned  kisses 

to  them, 

He  fumbles  up  into  a  loose  adieu : 
And  scants  us  with  a  single  famish'd  kiss, 
Distasted  with  the  salt  of  broken  tears. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

I  have  not  cited  the  little  golden  bits  that 
gleam  through  Troilus  and  Cressida.  Any 
reader  can  find  them  for  himself.  But  there 
is  no  foil  of  drama  behind  these  stray 
jewels.  The  play  constantly  reminds  us  of 
Shakespeare's  other  worlds.  Perhaps  it 
supplied  him  with  no  controlling  mood,  and 
he  was  thus  led  to  filch  from  his  other 
moods.  One  might  think  that  the  following 
lines  must  come  out  of  Othello.  Troilus  is 
warning  Cressida  not  to  forget  him  among 
the  dances  and  gaieties  of  the  Grecian  camp: 


But  I  can  tell  that  in  each  grace  of  these 
There  lurks  a  still  and  dumb-discoursive 

devil 
That  tempts  most  cunningly.    But  be  not 

tempted. 

I  must  cite  also  a  clever  remark  about 
women  which  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  Ulysses 
by  the  great  observer  and  lover  of  women, 
Shakespeare.  It  is  coldly  and  somewhat 
coarsely  said,  and  is  extremely  abstract,  in 
tellectual,  world-wise;  yet  it  records  and 
pictures  a  certain  type  of  woman  very  per 
fectly  : 


SHAKESPEARE 
Ulysses.      ...... 

O !  these  encounterers,  so  glib  of  tongue, 
That  give  accosting  welcome  ere  it  comes, 
And  wide  unclasp  the  tables  of  their 

thoughts 

To  every  ticklish  reader,  set  them  down 
For  sluttish  spoils  of  opportunity, 
And  daughters  of  the  game. 

Throughout  the  play  we  have  been  in 
contact  with  the  power  of  abstract  reason 
ing,  clothed  at  times  in  images  so  bright  and 
easy  as  to  make  it  beautiful,  fading  at  times 
into  commonplace,  and  often  replaced  by 
feeble  humour  and  empty  talk.  The  fact 
that  the  theme  does  not  interest  the  poet 
isolates  the  jets  of  his  talent  and  in  some  de 
gree  analyses  the  man  for  us.  There  is,  as 
it  were,  no  character-interest  in  this  play,  no 
lago,  no  Shylock,  no  Romeo;  and  there  is 
no  plot.  I  can  find  no  unity  in  it,  and  yet  it 
is  full  of  the  greatest  talent  for  writing  that 
a  man  ever  possessed.  This  talent  seems  to 
roll  about  like  a  hulk  in  the  trough  of  the 
sea. 

But  Shakespeare  knew  nothing  of  all 
this.  He  was  as  much  at  home  in  the  mud 
as  in  the  rainbow,  and  spent  perhaps  not  so 
much  time  over  his  Troilus  and  Cressida  as 

£189:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

any  one  will  who  tries  to  understand  the 
play.  Shakespeare  had  no  intentions,  but 
wrote  as  Mozart  wrote.  Very  unlike  Mo 
zart  was  he:  for  parts  of  Shakespeare  are 
ugly,  and  much  of  him  is  whimsical,  and 
some  of  him  is  perverted.  But  his  work  is 
all  a  natural  product,  like  the  silk-worm's 
thread.  One  can  never  be  quite  sure  that 
even  Thersites  may  not  show  under  the 
microscope  some  beautiful  pattern  on  his 
back,  as  Caliban  does. 

Perhaps  half  the  error  in  the  world  re 
sults  from  providing  other  people  with  in 
tentions;  and  perhaps  the  unique  power  of 
Shakespeare  consists  in  the  fact  that  he  had 
none.  He  rolls  in  the  waters  of  his  thought, 
fathoms  deep,  without  attempt  to  save  him 
self,  without  interest  or  knowledge  as  to 
where  he  is  or  in  what  direction  he  moves. 
He  is  unconscious,  like  an  infant ;  and  open 
ing  his  eyes  on  the  nearest  object,  remem 
bers  the  remotest  with  no  consciousness  of 
transition.  His  mind  is  like  a  windmill  that 
makes  no  effort,  but  merely  transmits  natu 
ral  force;  and  his  thoughts  hit  us  with  the 
power  of  all  nature  behind  them.  They  are 
ingenuous,  spontaneous,  almost  unexamined. 


V 

THE  MELANCHOLY  PLAYS 

IN  the  full  tide  of  one  of  Shakespeare's 
great  arguments,  as  in  Lear  or  in  Ham 
let,  the  forces  are  stupendous,  yet  through 
the  perfection  of  the  invisible  machinery  of 
the  play  there  is  nothing  which  we  can  take 
hold  of,  saying,  "Here  lies  the  power."  It 
is  the  same  with  all  other  very  great  works 
of  art.  They  teach  us,  themselves,  but  will 
not  answer  questions  as  to  how  it  is  done. 
Thus  it  comes  about  that  one  can  best  study 
the  minds  of  great  artists  in  their  lesser  and 
imperfect  works.  Here  we  find  problems 
not  too  complex  and  a  velocity  of  thought 
not  so  high  as  to  defy  pursuit.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  a  chapter  has  been  devoted  to 
Troilus  and  Cressida;  and  for  the  same  rea 
son  it  is  well  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of 
Shakespeare's  other  minor  plays  by  the  light 
of  whatever  we  happen  to  know,  whether  of 
life  or  of  literature. 

Shakespeare  was  subject  to  fits  of  gloomy 


GREEK  GENIUS 

depression,  or  he  never  could  have  left  be 
hind  such  sad  documents  as  some  of  these 
minor  plays.  How  far  the  melancholy  is 
due  to  the  plot,  and  how  far  to  the  poet's 
own  circumstances,  we  can  never  know. 
But  we  may  assume  that  Shakespeare's 
mood  as  we  find  it  in  any  play  was  the  mood 
which  governed  him  in  the  choice  of  the 
story.  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  falls  into 
the  list  of  plays  that  leave  us  sad.  Melan 
choly  moulders  in  the  very  title  of  it;  for 
we  feel  that  all  is  not  well  nor  ever  has  been 
nor  can  be  well  again.  There  was  not  much 
in  the  box  of  life;  and  there  has  been  a  great 
pother  about  opening  it  and  shutting  it,  and 
at  last  it  is  shut  up  with  a  triumphant  and 
sudden  major  chord,  but  the  box  is  empty. 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  is  one  of  the  plays 
in  which  an  Italian  plot  proves  to  be  an  in 
digestible  morsel  to  the  English  playwright. 
Why  could  not  Shakespeare  have  treated 
this  plot  in  the  spirit  of  the  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,  which  makes  no  moral  appeal  ?  The 
reason  is  that  behind  Shakespeare's  Taming 
of  the  Shrew  there  was  an  old  Italian  com 
edy  which  gave  him  his  colouring,  whereas 
in  All's  Well  he  is  adapting  an  older  English 
play,  which  had  taken  an  Italian  fable  se 
riously.  The  plot  is  at  war  with  the  drama- 


SHAKESPEARE 

tist,  and  neither  one  comes  off  wholly 
victorious.  In  some  of  his  Italian  stories— 
as  in  Romeo  and  Juliet — Shakespeare  trans 
mutes  all  the  characters  into  himself,  and 
triumphs.  But  in  others  he  fails.  The  tales 
of  the  Italian  prelate  Bandello,  in  which 
wives  disguise  themselves  and  seduce  their 
husbands,  soldiers  stab  and  throw  dice,  wid 
ows  climb  in  and  out  of  windows,  and  all 
men  wear  masks  and  take  life  lightly,  are  so 
foreign  to  Northern  sentiment,  that  in  giv 
ing  them  life  Shakespeare  often  equivocates. 
The  plot  of  All's  Well  is  as  follows :  A  maid 
cures  a  sick  king,  who  promises  to  give  her 
whatever  bridegroom  she  shall  choose  in 
marriage.  She  chooses  Bertram,  with 
whom  she  has  long  been  in  love,  and  who 
flees  the  court  upon  the  announcement  that 
he  must  wed  her.  The  rest  of  the  story  con 
sists  in  the  lady's  contriving  a  secret  assigna 
tion  with  Bertram,  unknown  to  the  man 
himself,  who  thereupon  repents,  marries  her, 
and  "all's  well."  Such  a  degraded  plot 
might  well  daunt  a  romantic  spirit.  Even  the 
genius  of  Shakespeare  has  been  foiled  by 
this  material.  There  is  no  character  in  All's 
Well  that  Ends  Well  that  can  attract  us,  ex 
cept  the  old  Countess  Mother,  who  is  a 
secondary  subject,  a  still-life  portrait,  and 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Lafeu,  the  old  lord,  who  is  a  happy  thought, 
done  with  a  few  strokes  by  the  great  play 
wright.  The  other  characters  are  rendered 
gloomy  by  the  exigencies  of  the  plot.  Ber 
tram  has  been  carefully  understood,  from 
the  Northern  point  of  view,  as  a  sneak; 
Helena  is  sentimentalised  in  a  manner  so  at 
war  with  her  conduct  as  to  make  her  repel 
lent  ;  Parolles  is  a  bore. 

There  are  points  in  this  play,  as  in  all  the 
others,  in  which  Shakespeare  never  fails. 
You  may  call  him  up  at  one  in  the  morning, 
after  he  has  left  the  tavern  at  midnight,  and 
he  will  give  you  the  speech  of  the  innocent 
young  girl  at  any  desired  length  and  of  un 
failing  beauty.  So,  in  this  play,  the  speeches 
of  the  heroine,  Helena,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  play  are  charming, — till  we  find  out 
what  her  course  of  action  is  to  be.  She 
starts  off,  as  it  were,  with  being  Miranda; 
but,  having  cured  the  King,  she  bargains  for 
a  husband  as  follows : 

Helena.    Then  shalt  thou  give  me  with  thy 

kingly  hand 

What  husband  in  thy  power  I  will  com 
mand: 
Exempted  be  from  me  the  arrogance 


SHAKESPEARE 

To  choose  from  forth  the  royal  blood  of 

France, 

My  low  and  humble  name  to  propagate 
With  any  branch  or  image  of  thy  state ; 
But  such  a  one,  thy  vassal,  whom  I  know 
Is  free  for  me  to  ask,  thee  to  bestow. 

Miranda  soon  disappears  in  the  Italian  in 
trigue,  and  never  comes  out  alive.  In  the 
end  Helena  plays  the  part  of  a  bawd.  Per 
haps  this  plot  might  have  been  carried 
through  as  a  fairy  story;  but  Shakespeare 
treats  it  with  naturalism.  He  is  doing  his 
best  with  the  tale,  and  grinds  away  at  Pa- 
rolles  and  at  the  episode  of  the  drum.  Why 
is  not  all  this  genial  and  amusing,  like  Fal- 
staff  or  Twelfth  Night?  Shakespeare's 
heart  is  not  in  it,  nor  his  head,  either.  There 
is,  in  truth,  nothing  here  to  excite  him.  He 
is  conscientiously  and  cleverly  staging  the 
story,  which  is  artificial  and  mundane. 
There  is  no  point  at  which  he  can  deliver  a 
metaphysical  remark  about  the  other  world. 
-Yes,  there  is  one ;  and  the  words  are  put 
into  the  mouth  of  La  feu,  who  comments 
upon  the  King's  recovery  as  follows : 

"They  say  miracles  are  past ;  and  we  have 
our  philosophical  persons,  to  make  modern 

C'953 


GREEK  GENIUS 

and  familiar  things  supernatural  and  cause 
less.  Hence  is  it  that  we  make  trifles  of  ter 
rors,  ensconcing  ourselves  into  seeming 
knowledge,  when  we  should  submit  ourselves 
to  an  unknown  fear." 

The  profundity  of  Lafeu's  idea  is  aston 
ishing,  and  amounts  to  this :  every  explana 
tion  of  the  miraculous  is  superficial ;  behind 
all  there  must  be  a  deeper  miracle,  which  is 
not  explained.  The  King's  recovery  re 
minds  Shakespeare  of  this  whole  field  of 
thought;  but  the  action  of  the  play  presses, 
and  he  moves  on. 

At  the  bottom  of  our  distress  over  Helena 
in  All's  Well  there  lies  a  dramatic  difficulty. 
What  we  call  a  character  in  a  play  is  a  result, 
and  not  a  prefigured  idea.  Shakespeare's 
characters  result  from  his  plots ;  and  where 
a  story  is  too  artificial,  even  Shakespeare 
can  do  no  more  than  throw  out  occasionally 
a  good  idea  which  is  neutralised  by  the 
sequel.  No  matter  how  great  a  painter  may 
be,  he  cannot  admit  false  lights  into  his  can 
vas  without  spoiling  its  atmosphere.  In 
romantic  drama  a  character  is  a  mere  draw 
ing  in  smoke, — perfect  so*  long  as  it  is  un 
touched,  but  the  merest  breath  will  confuse 
it.  Cordelia  lives  in  her  few  speeches,  and  is 


SHAKESPEARE 

as  solid  as  marble.  If  the  plot  of  King  Lear 
had  required  some  subsequent  banality  from 
Cordelia,  Shakespeare  would  not  have  hesi 
tated  for  a  moment.  He  would  have  dashed 
it  in  and  gone  to  dinner,  and  we  of  the 
twentieth  century  should  have  been  made  to 
feel  a  little  gloomy  by  it. 

In  Measure  for  Measure  there  is  a  much 
severer  gloom  than  in  All's  Well.  Here  is 
a  comedy  to  make  a  man  drown  himself  and 
have  Shakespeare's  name  carved  on  his 
tomb.  There  is  a  running  accompaniment 
of  great  intellect  in  this  play,  whose  action 
goes  forward  in  a  twilight  of  blighted  silver, 
with  no  sunlight  in  it.  In  the  poetic  scenes 
there  is  the  rhetoric  of  Prospero  without  his 
power.  In  the  comic  interludes  there  is  the 
manner  of  Eastcheap  without  its  humour. 

Here  again,  as  in  All's  Well,  the  innocent 
woman  receives  the  few  streaming  shafts 
from  heaven  in  a  couple  of  scenes  of  great 
tragedy.  The  rest  of  the  play  follows  out  in 
detail  a  painful  intrigue,  through  which  the 
villain,  Angelo,  is  safely  married  off  to  his 
old  neglected  sweetheart,  Mariana  of  the 
Moated  Grange.  In  the  somewhat  sudden 
wind  up,  every  one  shakes  hands  all  round 
in  a  fashion  worthy  of  Dickens,  and  the  cur 
tain  falls. 

073 


GREEK  GENIUS 

In  Measure  for  Measure  the  suggestion 
of  the  wicked  Judge,  Angelo,  that  he  shall 
pardon  Isabella's  brother,  but  at  the  price  of 
her  own  honour,  gives  rise  to  a  tragic  situa 
tion  of  the  first  magnitude;  and  the  play 
immediately  soars  into  tragedy  as  naturally 
as  if  Lear  were  on  the  stage.  Isabella  is  a 
novice  in  a  convent.  Her  directness  and 
promptitude  of  mind  are  as  marked  as 
her  innocence.  Shakespeare's  good  women 
never  understand  evil.  When  her  brother's 
friend,  Lucio,  the  man  about  town,  explains 
to  her  that  her  brother,  Claudio,  has  been 
condemned  to  death  through  the  enforce 
ment  of  the  old  law  against  adultery,  she 
does  not  comprehend.  Her  innocence  strikes 
poetry  into  the  debauchee.  He  apologises 
for  his  plainness  of  speech : 

Lucio.       .          .          .... 

I  hold  you  as  a  thing  ensky'd,  and  sainted 
By  your  announcement,  an  immortal 

spirit, 

And  to  be  talk'd  with  in  sincerity, 
As  with  a  saint. 

He  explains  the  matter  again,  and  in  lan 
guage  which  no  one  can  mistake.  She 
understands  now,  but  is  not  sure. 

C'983 


SHAKESPEARE 

Isabella.    Someone  with  child  by  him? — My 
cousin  Juliet  ? 

It  is  agreed  that  she  shall  intercede 
with  the  Judge,  Angelo.  At  her  second 
interview  with  Angelo,  when  he  proposes 
the  infamous  bargain,  she  misunderstands 
for  a  long  time,  and  then  bursts  into  flame 
as  naturally  as  a  peasant  woman  might  do : 

Aug.  Believe  me,  on  mine  honour, 

My  words  express  my  purpose. 

Isab.    Ha !  little  honour  to  be  much  believed, 
And  most  pernicious  purpose!  —  Seeming, 

seeming!— 

I  will  proclaim  thee,  Angelo;  look  for  't: 
Sign  me  a  present  pardon  for  my  brother, 
Or  with  an  outstretched  throat  I'll  tell  the 

world 
Aloud  what  man  them  art. 


It  next  becomes  her  duty  to  consult 
Claudio,  her  brother,  about  the  whole  mat 
ter.  And  Claudio  is  shaken  by  the  fear  of 
death.  This  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  besieg 
ing  thoughts,  and  the  young  Claudio,  a 
somewhat  unideaed  youth,  speaks  with  the 
tongue  of  Hamlet's  father : 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not 

where ; 

To  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  and  to  rot ; 
This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod ;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice; 
To  be  imprison'd  in  the  viewless  winds, 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round 

about 
The  pendant  world ;  or  to  be  worse  than 

worst 
Of  those  that  lawless  and  incertain 

thoughts 

Imagine  howling! — 'tis  too  horrible. 
The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly 

life, 

That  age,  ache,  penury,  and  imprisonment 
Can  lay  on  nature  is  a  paradise 
To  what  we  fear  of  death. 
I  sab.    Alas !  alas ! 

Claud.  Sweet  sister,  let  me  live. 

What  sin  you  do  to  save  a  brother's  life, 
Nature  dispenses  with  the  deed  so  far 
That  it  becomes  a  virtue. 
hob.  O  you  beast ! 

O  faithless  coward !  O  dishonest  wretch ! 
Wilt  thou  be  made  a  man  out  of  my  vice? 
Is  't  not  a  kind  of  incest,  to  take  life 


SHAKESPEARE 

From  thine  own  sister's  shame  ?    What 

should  I  think  ? 
Heaven  shield,  my  mother  play'd  my 

father  fair; 

For  such  a  warped  slip  of  wilderness 
Ne'er  issu'd  from  his  blood.    Take  my 

defiance : 

Die ;  perish !    Might  but  my  bending  down 
Reprieve  thee  from  thy  fate,  it  should 

proceed. 

I'll  pray  a  thousand  prayers  for  thy  death, 
No  word  to  save  thee. 

Here  is  womanhood  from  queen  to  peas 
ant,  and  drama  from  eternity  to  eternity. 
But  there  is  not  much  of  either  in  Measure 
for  Measure, — not  enough  of  either  to  drag 
the  play  in  the  great  procession  of  Shake 
speare's  tragedies.  For  this  same  woman, 
Isabella,  at  the  close  of  the  play  is  made  to 
simulate  another  woman  in  making  (not 
keeping)  an  assignation.  The  innocent, 
fiery  Isabella  of  the  earlier  act  would  never 
have  consented  to  play  out  the  licentious 
Italian  comedy  which  Shakespeare  casts  her 
for  in  the  last  act.  The  spectator  feels  this, 
and  resents  the  soil  which  Shakespeare  has 
cast  on  his  own  creation.  But  for  this 
slander,  Isabella  would  have  taken  her  place 


GREEK  GENIUS 

beside  Desdemona  and  Imogen.  But  Shake 
speare  sometimes  had  bad  taste;  or,  rather, 
he  had  no  taste  at  all :  for  taste  is  conscious 
art. 

While  all  these  things  have  been  going  on 
in  Measure  for  Measure,  the  rightful  Duke 
has  made  a  pretended  abdication,  and  has 
been  moving  about  in  the  disguise  of  a  friar, 
ready  to  appear  as  deus  ex  machina  at  the 
proper  moment.  For  some  reason  which  I 
cannot  fathom  this  device  is  dramatically 
ineffective.  It  would  have  been  better  if  the 
old  Duke  had  been  kept  entirely  out  of  the 
way  till  the  climax.  But  in  that  case  we 
should  have  missed  another  most  Shake 
spearian  lecture  on  death  which  the  Duke-as- 
Friar  delivers  in  the  jail  to  the  condemned 
Claudio,  and  which  colours  the  play. 

Claud.    The  miserable  have  no  other 

medicine, 
But  only  hope. 
I  have  hope  to  live,  and  am  prepar'd  to 

die. 
Duke.    Be  absolute  for  death;  either  death, 

or  life, 
Shall  thereby  be  the  sweeter.   Reason  thus 

with  life:— 

If  I  do  lose  thee,  I  do  lose  a  thing 
O2] 


SHAKESPEARE 

That  none  but  fools  would  keep ;  a  breath 

thou  art, 

Servile  to  all  the  skyey  influences, 
That  do  this  habitation,  where  thou 

keep'st, 
Hourly  afflict.  .  .  . 

In  this  long  speech,  of  which  I  give  only 
the  opening,  Hamlet,  Macbeth,  Prospero, 
Touchstone,  and  many  others  peep  out,  but 
there  is  no  new  character.  The  speech  is  a 
gloomy  and  decorative  bit  of  rhetoric,  sin 
cere  only  in  that  it  somehow  depicts  Shake 
speare's  mood.  As  for  Angelo  himself, 
with  his  gravity,  his  sudden,  unconvincing 
lust,  and  his  final  happy  marriage,  the  plot 
precludes  his  being  a  human  character  at  all. 
There  is  no  such  man.  It  must  be  observed, 
in  closing  Measure  for  Measure,  that  the 
whole  play  is  marked  by  a  quite  unnecessary 
grossness, — the  indecency  which  goes  with 
melancholy  and  is  a  part  of  it. 

Every  one  should  read  Timon  of  Athens, 
and  see  whether  a  moral  can  be  drawn  out  of 
it.  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  chosen  the 
plot  because  he  was  in  ill-humour,  perhaps 
sick.  Feeling  thoroughly  cynical,  he  seems 
to  have  expected  to  write  a  cynical  play.  The 
cynicism  in  Timon,  however,  is  so  evenly 


GREEK  GENIUS 

distributed  among  so  many  characters  that 
all  the  dramatic  effect  of  it  is  lost.  The  play 
is  thus  without  idea,  and  its  incidents  are 
absurdly  dull.  A  sort  of  malevolence  ex 
hales  from  it,  but  nothing  that  can  be 
thought  of  as  philosophy.  Timon,  after  a 
life  of  senseless  expenditure,  grows  poor, 
and  is  surprised  to  find  that  his  creditors  and 
the  sycophants  who  had  surrounded  him  in 
prosperity  do  not  love  him  in  his  disgrace. 
He  therefore  leaves  Athens  and  digs  in  the 
earth  for  roots.  In  digging  he  finds  gold, 
and  with  this  he  subsidises  Alcibiades,  who 
is  also  in  exile,  to  avenge  the  injuries  of 
both  by  destroying  Athens.  The  play  is  too 
Elizabethan,  too  near  the  charade,  and  too 
shallow  to  be  interesting  as  a  play;  but  it  is 
full  of  truly  Shakespearian  touches  in  the 
language.  Shakespeare's  genius  has  evi 
dently  been  unable  to  take  hold  of  this  mate 
rial.  It  was  his  habit  to  seize  his  themes 
experimentally,  and  he  never  knew  what  was 
coming  out  of  a  plot.  He  began  at  once, 
without  knowing  just  where  he  was  to  end, 
and  he  never  found  the  same  theme  twice. 
His  most  tremendous  effects  are  due  to  this 
method,  and  his  "effects  defective"  also 
come  by  this  cause.  When  tragedy  unrolls 
out  of  his  gossamer,  it  arrives  as  a  gift  of 

c  204:1 


SHAKESPEARE 

nature,— born,  not  made.  It  has  the  bril 
liancy  of  the  humming-bird  and  the  edge  of 
the  sword-lily's  leaf.  Romeo  and  Juliet  has 
in  it  the  morn  and  liquid  dew  of  youth. 
When  the  subject  yields  no  tragedy,  as  in 
Coriolanus, — why,  then  you  may  take  what 
you  get.  There  was  nothing  in  the  subject, 
as  it  turns  out.  We  can  blame  nobody  for 
our  disappointments  in  the  Melancholy 
Plays.  No  one  is  responsible. 


VI 

SHAKESPEARE'S  INFLUENCE 

/CONTACT  with  Shakespeare's  large, 
V_>  impersonal  mind  makes  us  bigger.  A 
man  does  not  need  to  read  a  play  through  in 
order  to  receive  the  poet's  influence,  which  is 
like  an  electric  stimulation  and  affects  our 
whole  being,  though  we  receive  it  through 
the  finger-tips.  If  one  could  find  two  boys 
of  twelve  who  were  exactly  alike,  and  if  one 
of  them  should  begin  to  read  Shakespeare 
with  interest,  he  would  become  more  intelli 
gent  than  the  other  lad  within  fifteen  min 
utes.  The  acceptability  of  Shakespeare  to 
the  young  is  one  of  his  divinest  qualities. 
There  is,  as  it  were,  a  ready-made  world 
which  Shakespeare  slides  into  our  minds 
long  before  we  are  capable  of  receiving  the 
real  world.  This  Shakespearian  world  is 
healthier,  happier,  and  infinitely  cleverer 
than  the  real  world.  Its  eloquence  is  run 
ning  at  a  high  speed,  and  the  smallest  con- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

tact  with  any  word  in  it  makes  our  entire 
system  stand  erect. 

Shakespeare's  intelligence  was  completely 
developed.  There  were  matters  that  did  not 
interest  him;  but  everything  that  he  knew 
was  co-ordinated.  He  always  speaks  from 
the  same  pulpit.  This  is  not  obvious,— in 
deed,  it  is  the  last  thing  that  many  people 
would  say  about  him,— because  we  do  not 
know  where  that  pulpit  was,  nor  how  he  got 
into  it.  But  his  phrases  always  come  from 
the  same  personality,  from  the  same  intel 
lectual  outlook.  It  is  as  if  the  human  soul 
consisted  of  an  infinite  series  of  concentric 
spheres,  one  inside  the  other,  and  Shake 
speare's  voice  always  caused  the  same  sphere 
to  resound.  When  we  hear  the  ring  of  it 
we  cry,  "Shakespeare !"  in  our  sleep.  He 
is  a  metaphysical  unity,  and  all  his  charac 
ters  are  merely  Shakespeare — Shakespeare 
with  rays  of  humour  about  his  head,  or  with 
an  old  cloak  from  some  royal  coronation 
upon  his  shoulders.  We  cannot  distinguish 
between  the  man  and  the  artist.  The  man 
and  the  artist  are  one. 

It  is  this  disappearance  of  the  man  into  the 
artist,  by  the  way,  that  has  so  puzzled  the 
world  about  Shakespeare's  personality.  Peo 
ple  are  ever  searching  for  the  mask,  and 


SHAKESPEARE 

there  is  no  mask.  Ambition  is  what  reveals 
men,  and  he  had  no  ambition.  Motive  is 
what  shows  men's  contours,  and  he  had  no 
motive.  He  had  no  desire  to  conceal  him 
self,  but  he  vanishes  in  a  witticism  because 
he  is  all  wit.  During  his  lifetime  he  was  so 
logically  perfect  in  his  indifference  that  no 
one  especially  noticed  his  existence;  and  he 
passed  through  life  as  a  pleasant  fellow  of 
no  great  importance,  leaving  such  a  minimum 
of  personal  reminiscences  in  the  minds  of 
his  contemporaries  that  people  now  think 
him  a  mystery.  The  real  mystery,  however, 
is  one  which  the  knowledge  of  personal 
facts  could  not  solve  for  us. 

He  has  left  the  most  powerful  record  of 
the  kind  of  man  he  must  have  been  by  leaving 
a  vacuum.  His  life  and  mind  are  a  monu 
ment  to  the  unknowable.  The  vanishing- 
point  is  in  every  moment  of  his  thought  and 
in  every  line  of  his  work,  and  he  has  van 
ished  into  it.  The  average  man  is  puzzled 
by  this  outcome.  He  thinks  that  the  infinite 
is  an  algebraical  term  or  a  poetic  sentiment ; 
and  Shakespeare  presents  him  with  the  in 
finite  in  flesh  and  blood. 

There  are  certain  very  categorical  minds, 
often  very  strong  minds,  that  feel  a  chal 
lenge  in  this  whole  phenomenon  of  Shake- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

speare's  unknowability.  They  are  excited 
and  almost  angered  by  it.  They  must  and 
will  understand.  Hence  the  prodigious 
literature  of  quack  discovery  about  Shake 
speare.  Now  the  quack  is  a  man  whose  sen 
timent  is  not  satisfied  unless  he  discovers 
something  that  is  not  there.  If  he  should 
find  a  true  thing,  it  would  coalesce  with  the 
rest  of  truth  and  somewhat  defeat  his  ambi 
tion;  he  would  never  be  satisfied  with  it. 
Each  one  of  the  new  pundits  has  therefore  a 
theory  of  his  own  and  betrays  a  kind  of 
megalomania  in  regard  to  it.  All  this  false 
learning  is  a  by-product  of  Shakespeare's 
metaphysical  influence,  much  as  the  ten 
thousand  dogmas  of  Christianity  are  the  re 
sult  of  Christ's  thought  as  it  acts  upon  minds 
which  resent  the  abstraction  of  that  thought. 
Shakespeare  belongs  to  the  Renaissance. 
We  feel  this  quite  distinctly  in  considering 
his  relation  to  religion.  Like  the  great 
pagan  painters  of  the  Italian  Renaissance, 
he  knows  only  so  much  of  religion  as  his  art 
teaches  him, — as  his  art  made  necessary. 
There  are  some  kinds  of  painting  which 
imply  religion.  Paul  Veronese,  through 
sheer  aesthetic  necessity,  paints  a  saint,  paints 
a  Pentecost.  Guido  Reni  paints  a  Cruci 
fixion  which  touches  the  sphere  of  religious 


SHAKESPEARE 

truth.  In  such  cases  the  artistic  illumination 
suffices  for  the  artistic  need;  but  one  step 
beyond  it  the  artist  does  not  go.  So  in 
Shakespeare  there  are  decorative  phrases  of 
a  religious  beauty  which  is  lent  to  him  by 
the  thing  in  hand,  — I  mean  by  the  spiritual 
wise  en  scene. 
For  instance : 

"In  those  holy  fields 

Over  whose  acres  walked  those  blessed  feet, 
Which  fourteen  hundred  years  ago  were 

nailed 
For  our  advantage  on  the  bitter  cross." 

Again : 

"He  gave  his  honours  to  the  world  again, 
His  blessed  past  to  heaven,  and  slept  in 
peace." 

This  kind  of  religious  feeling  in  Shake 
speare  is  a  sort  of  feudal  tapestry  with  which 
he  adorns  his  banqueting-hall.  Perhaps  the 
political  conditions  of  his  day  helped  to 
banish  religious  motives  from  his  stage. 
One  suspects  in  him  also  an  instinctive 
avoidance  of  such  motives  on  grounds  of 
personal  feeling.  At  any  rate,  the  absence 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  religious  motive  colours  the  plays  and 
gives  them  their  quality. 

Shakespeare  uses  religious  metaphors  in 
much  the  same  way  that  he  uses  mythology ; 
indeed,  I  should  say  that  the  pagan  symbol 
ism  was  dearer  to  him  than  the  Christian. 
His  whole  work  is  tinged  with  the  atmo 
sphere  of  an  imaginary  antiquity,  which 
comes  to  him  from  translations  of  Ovid, 
Plutarch,  and  Virgil,  and  which  bears  the 
same  relation  to  classic  feeling  that  the  back 
grounds  in  quattrocentist  pictures  bear  to 
ancient  Rome.  He  never  came  near  enough 
to  the  Latin  writers  to  be  influenced  by  them 
in  style  or  purpose. 

It  is  worth  while  to  read  the  modest  essay 
entitled  Life  of  Shakespeare  by  Nicholas 
Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first  editor,  which  was 
published  in  1709,  and  which,  on  the  whole, 
gives  almost  as  good  an  account  of  the  poet 
as  the  later  critics  have  been  able  to  work 
out.  Rowe  preserves  a  tradition,  which  the 
English  scholars  have  somewhat  neglected, 
that  Shakespeare  "died  a  Papist."  That  the 
poet  should  have  accepted  the  final  ministra 
tions  of  a  priest  seems  to  chime  in  with  what 
one  finds  in  the  plays.  The  tradition  accords 
with  the  decorative  piety  of  Shakespeare's 
spirit,  and  with  the  only  doctrinal  prejudice 


SHAKESPEARE 

which  we  can  certainly  perceive  in  his  work, 
—namely,  his  dislike  of  the  Puritans.  He 
could  hardly  have  been  a  "good"  Catholic,  or 
we  should  have  found  it  out  in  a  hundred 
ways ;  but  he  was  a  romantic  sceptic  with  a 
fondness  for  the  dramatic  beauties  of  the  old 
religion.  His  Ghost  in  Hamlet  is  purgatorial 
and  doctrinal,— just  enough  so  for  stage 
purposes.  His  marriages  in  the  Comedy  of 
Errors  and  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  are — well, 
they  are  really  pagan,  with  a  few  candles  and 
a  vague  Mother  Church  from  No-Man's- 
Land. standing  behind.  So  also  his  burials 
are  scenic.  The  dirge  over  Imogen,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  pantheistic.  This  is  his  own 
sort  of  religion,— and  a  sweet  rhapsody  it 
is.  So  in  most  of  his  discourses  on  death  the 
romanticism  and  the  scepticism  reveal  to  us 
Shakespeare's  personal  church. 

With  Shakespeare  died  the  Renaissance 
in  England.  The  psalm-singing  weavers  of 
whom  he  makes  fun, — and  not  good-natured 
fun,  either, — \vere  to  rule  the  land  within  a 
few  years  after  his  death.  That  they  should 
cut  so  little  figure  in  these  plays,  which  teem 
with  the  national  life,  does  not  prove  the 
non-existence  of  the  pious  weavers,  but  only 
that  Shakespeare's  thought  did  not  receive 
them.  It  shows  how  special  and  peculiar  is 


GREEK  GENIUS 

the  world  in  which  lives  tl/e  artist, — even 
the  greatest  artist.  Every  artist  is  an  impe- 
rium  in  imperio,  a  cathedral  with  perhaps  a 
dead  town  at  its  feet,  or,  as  in  this  case,  a 
Renaissance  palace  with  a  live  town  at  its 
feet. 

With  regard  to  the  miraculous  nature  of 
life,  Shakespeare  never  forgets  it :  it  is  every 
where.  He  resents  the  mere  notion  of 
rationalism.  He  will  not  have  it  that  any 
explanation  is  true.  Throughout  Hamlet 
and  The  Tempest— indeed,  in  all  his  plays 
—he  shows  his  acquaintance  with  hypno 
tism,  telepathy,  and  the  power  of  prayer,— 
with  the  potency  of  unseen  forces  which  rule 
the  world.  "Spirits  are  not  finely  touched 
save  to  fine  issues."  The  thing  in  hand  is  a 
part  of  something  else ;  men  are  projections 
of  other  powers,  and  what  we  see  is  due  to 
the  operation  of  something  behind.  His 
moralising  largely  consists  in  drawing  our 
attention  to  these  phenomena.  "Canst  thou 
who  dost  command  the  beggar's  knee  com 
mand  the  health  of  it?"  All  these  manifes 
tations  of  spirit  he  knows  not  as  theories  or 
beliefs.  He  knows  them  in  the  raw,  and  sees 
them  freshly  as  he  speaks. 

It  is  just  because  Shakespeare  insists  on 
leaving  matters  in  the  mist  in  which  they  are 


SHAKESPEARE 

born  that  his  thought  endures.  Persons  who 
schematise  the  Unknowable  codify  them 
selves,  and  pass  by  with  the  age  they  live  in. 
The  crucible  of  Shakespeare  turns  all  to 
vapour,  and  leaves  a  Shakespearian  cosmos 
which  is  at  every  point  true  to  itself.  He 
thus  gives  us  an  instantaneous  vision  of  a 
single  one  of  the  infinite  concentric  worlds 
that  slumber  in  each  of  us. 

Shakespeare's  Universe  is  so  at  one  with 
itself    that    it    controls    our    attention    like 
Greek  art ;   and   it  is  almost  as   far   from 
the  world  of  religion  as  Greek  art  is.    That 
consciousness  of  the  presence  of  God  which 
i   invades  men's  emotions  and  almost  extin- 
:  guishes  the  visible  world  for  them  is  not  in 
(  Shakespeare.   Moreover,  that  desire  to  com 
municate  and  spread  the  consciousness  of 
God  to  others,  which  accompanies  the  expe 
rience,   is  very  far  from  Shakespeare.     It 
would  be  distasteful  to  him.    He  is  with  the 
i   primal  intellect  in  such  matters;  and  those 
views  which  are  brought  back  and  redeliv- 
ered  to  the  intellect  only  after  the  intellect 
s  has  suffered  a  thorough  plunge,  and  has  been 
for  a  time  drowned  in  religious  emotion,  are 
unknown  to  him. 

I  confess  that  the  intellect  often  comes 
£  back  melted  and  distorted  from  the  drown- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ing  experiences  of  religion,  and  that  religion 
has  thus  sent  down  through  the  centuries  a 
track  of  distorted  intellect,  side  by  side  with 
the  track  of  sanctity,  of  benevolence,  and  of 
natural  power.  Nevertheless,  the  emotional 
consciousness  of  God  is  one  of  the  most 
important  factors  in  human  history.  It 
moulds  and  changes  humanity.  This  influ 
ence  did  not  pass  through  Shakespeare,  and 
to  transmit  it  is  no  part  of  his  function. 
Thus  it  appears  that  the  profoundest  experi 
ence  of  half  mankind — to  wit,  religion — is 
not  within  the  range  of  Shakespeare's  sym 
pathies;  and  yet  he  remains  the  greatest 
dramatist  of  the  world.  How  does  this  come 
about?  It  comes  about  through  the  rarity 
of  great  genius,  and  through  the  vastness  of 
range  in  human  life. 

We  can  perhaps  best  realise  the  matter  by 
turning  to  some  entirely  different  field  of 
thought.  We  see,  for  instance,  in  Beethoven 
or  in  Bach  a  talent  comparable  to  Shake 
speare's,  exercised  in  a  world  quite  different 
from  Shakespeare's  world. 

The  great  artist  is,  indeed,  a  rare  person. 
There  have  been  only  a  handful  of  them  in 
the  history  of  western  Europe.  And  it  is  a 
notable  thing  that  these  great  artists,  while 
each  one  speaks  from  his  own  sphere,  do  not 


SHAKESPEARE 

attack  one  another.  Shakespeare  does  not 
attack  Plato ;  nor  Bach,  Shakespeare.  Even 
Chinese  mysticism  looms  at  us  from  the  old 
pictures  with  meanings  which  are  native  to 
our  Western  sentiment. 

All  forms  of  great  art  are  cognate  and 
support  one  another.  Shakespeare  is  prob 
ably  the  strongest  personal  influence  of  a 
purely  intellectual  kind  in  the  world.  He  is 
one  of  the  great  sages  of  humanity  who 
teach  something  to  the  master-intellects  of 
each  generation.  And  besides  this,  he  is  by 
far  the  most  popular  poet  in  the  world,  and 
teaches  metaphysics  to  millions  who  do  not 
know  they  are  learning,  but  find  in  him 
merely  a  fellow-being  who  loves  and  un 
derstands  them. 


Ill 

BALZAC 


BALZAC 

THERE  is  in  France  a  light  literature 
which  does  not  bear  transportation. 
It  can  be  properly  read  and  enjoyed  only 
within  sight  of  the  Institute.  The  works 
have  not  enough  body  in  them  to  cross  the 
Atlantic.  A  book  of  this  sort  becomes  pre 
tentious  if  read  in  Fifth  Avenue;  all  the 
social  amenities  which  must  be  read  between 
the  lines  of  it  drop  to  the  bottom  of  the  flask 
and  become  unpleasant  lees.  But  when  read 
in  Paris,  and  as  it  comes  hot  from  the  fau- 
tcuil,  it  is  charming.  It  is  redolent  of  good 
taste  and  delicate  sentiment ;  it  is  generally  a 
small  book,  precise,  well-considered  and  just 
a  little  (but,  oh,  so  very  little!)  effete,  and 
it  flits  across  the  Seine  like  a  butterfly.  It 
is  really  a  conference  which  has  escaped 
through  the  open  windows  where  the  Acad 
emy  is  in  session. 

Such  a  book  is  Faguet's  Balzac.  This 
volume  is  one  of  the  series  of  Lcs  Grands 
Ecrivains  Francois,  which  Messrs.  Hachette 


GREEK  GENIUS 

are  giving  to  the  world,  and  it  presents  to 
us,  in  one  picture,  two  of  those  figures  which 
are  peculiar  to  French  civilisation — the 
Great  Master  Balzac  and  the  Little  Master 
Faguet.  By  a  remarkable  feat  of  draughts 
manship  both  figures  are  rendered  by  the 
same  line.  In  snipping  out  the  silhouette  of 
Balzac  with  the  sharpest  of  little  scissors, 
M.  Faguet  has  left  a  silhouette  of  himself 
cut  in  the  black  margin  that  falls  to  the 
ground.  We  are  made  to  feel  all  through 
the  book  that  the  things  which  Balzac  was 
not  are  the  things  which  make  up  M.  Faguet. 

This  ever  present  sinuous  line  or  profile 
divides  the  man  of  genius  from  his  critic — 
separates  the  creative,  unconscious,  original 
mind  of  the  artist  Balzac  from  the  sedulous 
mind  of  the  critic  Faguet.  The  men  belong 
to  different  species.  Balzac  is  a  talented, 
lusty  son  of  the  people,  who  has  picked  up 
his  knowledge  here  and  there;  Faguet  is  a 
careful  student,  who  takes  his  college  edu 
cation  very  seriously. 

Perhaps  the  strong  points  of  Balzac  are 
so  well  understood  in  France  that  M.  Faguet 
feels  no  need  of  enlarging  upon  them.  He 
feels  justified  in  launching  out  at  once  upon 
the  deficiencies  of  the  master,  upon  his  ig 
norance,  bad  taste,  egoism,  vulgarity,  clum- 


BALZAC 

siness,  etc.  An  ignorant  reader  would  be 
prone  to  ask:  "But  why  does  this  excellent, 
learned  gentleman,  M.  Faguet,  waste  his 
time  on  Balzac?  The  man  is  evidently  not 
worth  his  pains." 

M.  Faguet  shows  with  a  turn  of  his  wrist 
that  the  political  principles  and  religious 
beliefs  of  Balzac  are  not  worthy  to  be  called 
ideas,  and  that  Balzac  had  no  esthetique. 
Balzac  lived,  it  appears,  in  a  state  of  mental 
confusion.  Balzac  had  a  low  view  of  human 
nature,  and  his  central  thought  is  the  pes 
simism  of  the  cynic. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Balzac,  it  appears,  is 
not  an  artist.  He  has  no  sense  of  proportion 
and — O  horror!  O  agony! — he  confuses 
the  genres;  that  is  to  say,  he  mixes  in  dis 
quisitions  with  story-telling.  All  of  Balzac's 
sins  and  defects  are  as  nothing  compared  to 
this  profanation  of  the  genres. 

As  the  English  reader  may  not  understand 
about  the  genres,  I  must  quote  from  M. 
Faguet  himself.  The  following  is  but  one 
of  many  passages  in  which  M.  Faguet,  with 
sacred  enthusiasm,  protects  the  genres. 

"C'est  precisement  la  confusion  des 
genres.  Celui  qui  raconte  ne  doit  pas  dis- 
serter,  sous  peine  de  rendre  son  recit  en- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

nuyeux  et,  du  reste,  hybride  et  ambigu. 
Celui  qui  enseigne  ne  doit  pas  raconter  des 
histoires,  mais  settlement  apporter  comme 
preuves  a  Fappui  de  ce  qu'il  enseigne  des 
exemples  courts,  concis  et  ^amasses,  sous 
peine  de  se  faire  oublier  comme  professeur, 
comme  1'autre  se  faisait  oublier  comme  con- 
teur. 

—  'Pourquoi  ne  pas  confondre  les 
genres?  La  distinction  en  est-elle  aisee?' — 
Parce  qu'a  les  confondre,  a  les  meler,  on 
affaiblit  1'un  et  on  affaiblit  1'autre,  ce  qui 
fait  que  1'impression  finale  est  faible." 

To  suggest  of  Balzac  that  "the  final  impres 
sion  is  feeble"  is  a  novelty.  This  Balzac,  who 
is  no  artist,  whose  ideas  are  mere  impres-) 
sions  which  he  often  does  not  understand 
himself,  who  mixes  his  genres  so  lamentably, 
who  has  no  esthetique,  is  yet  the  most  pow 
erful  writer  France  ever  produced,  and  in 
influence  (as  Faguet  confesses)  must  be 
ranked  next  to  Montaigne,  Voltaire,  and 
Rousseau — this  Balzac,  according  to  M. 
Faguet,  writes  not  well,  but  badly.  He 
scarcely  ever  writes  well,  and  this  only  when 
he  forgets  himself.  Another  critic,  M. 
Brunetiere,  cited  by  Faguet,  has  been  so 
struck  with  the  badness  of  Balzac's  writing 


BALZAC 

and  the  badness  of  Moliere's  writing  that  he 
has  evolved  a  principle — i.e.,  that  it  is  neces 
sary  to  write  badly  in  order  to  represent  life 
("mal  ecrire  est  line  condition  de  la  repre 
sentation  de  la  vie").  I  wish  that  Moliere 
might  have  lived  to  hear  this  announcement, 
which  reminds  one  of  his  own  best  manner. 

This  whole  matter  of  Balzac's  style  and 
manner  of  writing  has  been  dealt  with  by  all 
of  his  reviewers.  It  is  a  great  subject  because 
of  Balzac's  greatness.  It  was  treated  by 
Taine  with  a  depth  and  originality  of  vision 
which  leave  nothing  to  be  desired.  And  yet 
the  reader  of  this  essay  will  be  indulgent  if 
the  subject  comes  to  the  surface  from  time 
to  time ;  for  the  questions  raised  by  Balzac's 
style  are  so  intimately  related  to  his  power 
that  they  refuse  to  be  dismissed.  Some  new 
aspect  of  his  power  brings  us  face  to  face 
with  a  new  aspect  of  his  style. 

There  is  a  charming  story  cited  by  M. 
Faguet  about  Balzac  in  his  prime.  At  St. 
Petersburg  a  Russian  lady -was  talking  to 
him  in  her  salon,  when  the  door  opened  and 
a  maid-servant  entered  bearing  a  plate. 
Upon  hearing  her  mistress  address  the 
stranger  as  "M.  de  Balzac,"  the  maid 
dropped  the  plate.  "This,"  said  Balzac  to 
his  hostess,  "is  fame !" 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Now  in  reading  through  the  very  clever, 
very  precise,  very  academic  remarks  of  M. 
Faguet,  I  found  myself  muttering:  "Yes, 
yes;  that  is  all  very  true.  Balzac  has  no 
ideas,  no  style;  his  mysticism  is  half  sham. 
He  has  no  art,  no  education.  And  yet,  some 
how,  at  the  back  of  all  this  there  is  a  big 
dynamic  force  in  him— behind  all,  through 
all,  he  clutches  my  heart  and  brain— and  not 
mine  only,  but  everyone's.  What  was  it  that 
made  that  servant  girl  drop  the  plate?"  One 
could  never  find  out  this  secret  by  reading 
the  books  of  the  Academy. 

The  function  of  an  academy  is  to  sup 
port  good  conventions,  to  encourage  sound 
grammar,  sensible  spelling,  clear  handwrit 
ing.  But  we  must  not  look  towards  acad 
emies  for  profound  criticism.  An  academy 
always  bristles  with  critical  perceptions,  but 
is  an  enemy  to  all  genius  except  its  own.  An 
academy  is  always  a  sort  of  benevolent  in 
cubus. 

There  never  was  a  nation  where  the 
standards  of  good  taste  were  so  sedulously 
maintained  as  they  are  in  France;  and  the 
French  Academy,  which  presides  over  these 
correctnesses  of  taste,  is  the  visible  agent  of 
a  ruling  passion.  The  French  Academy  is 
the  organised  taste  of  a  nation  which  loves 


BALZAC 

correctness.  At  first  glance  an  observer 
might  conclude  that  the  matter  ended  here ; 
and  that  the  French  Academy  represented 
the  sum  total  of  the  national  genius.  A 
slight  acquaintance  with  France  and  with 
French  history  would  show  him  that  quite 
the  reverse  is  true.  The  nation  has  con 
stantly  produced  men  who  were  too  great  to 
be  understood  by  the  Academy;  men  by 
\vhom — but  that  a  law  of  nature  forbids  it— 
the  Academy  itself  would  have  been  vital 
ised. 

To  write  about  Balzac  is  like  writing 
about  a  race  or  an  epoch.  Balzac  is  a  litera 
ture.  No  one  can  know  the  whole  of  him, 
any  more  than  one  can  be  acquainted  with 
every  shop  window  and  every  alley  in  Paris. 

If  we  should  endeavour  to  cover  the  whole 
of  Balzac  geographically  or  statistically,  we 
should  lose  the  elasticity  of  our  own  minds 
in  the  process.  We  should  be  sure  to  lose 
Balzac  himself  if  we  made  an  attempt  to 
catch  him  in  a  drag-net. 

We  do  not  know  just  how  his  books  differ 
from  the  rest  of  fiction,  though  it  is  certain 
that  Balzac's  fiction  stands  in  a  class  by  it 
self,  and  that  it  is  related  to  human  life  in  a 
unique  manner.  The  rest  of  prose  fiction 

1*271 


GREEK  GENIUS 

came  into  being  in  order  that  a  vehicle  and 
a  tradition  might  exist  in  which  Balzac 
should  be  possible.  He  is  the  Messiah  of 
fiction.  He  imposes  a  whole  world,  a  ro 
mantic  dispensation,  an  imaginary  civilisa 
tion,  upon  the  rest  of  humanity;  and  we  of 
England  or  America  accept  this  world,  un 
derstand  it,  and  live  in  it  without  abandon 
ing  our  own  ideals  and  our  ways  of  thought. 
We  accept  it  on  top  of  our  own  mode  of 
life,  as  an  imaginative  reality,  as  a  drama  of 
humanity — a  sort  of  classic,  as  powerful  as 
Homer,  and,  perhaps,  as  remote  from  our 
selves  as  the  Homeric  myths  are.  Such  is 
Balzac.  He  is  a  cycle  of  myth,  and  has  left 
himself  upon  the  earth,  like  a  wreath  of 
cloud,  an  emanation  of  power,  which  the 
revolutions  of  the  globe  are  spreading  to 
new  lands  as  the  years  go  by. 

There  is  every  sort  of  writing  in  Balzac's 
books,  from  the  trivial  and  penny-dreadful 
stories  of  his  youth  to  the  dulness  of  some 
of  the  philosophic  studies  by  which  he  set  so 
much  store.  I  am  going  to  speak  chiefly  of 
his  merits,  and  of  these  not  as  if  I  could 
analyse  them. 

Real  talent  is  always  miraculous.  Ana- 
tole  France  makes  you  see  the  picture  of  an 
episode  with  such  vividness  that  you  catch 

r.  228;] 


BALZAC 

your  breath.  You  have  seen  it  through  the 
back  of  the  book,  and  cannot  find  the  secret 
of  it  or  tell  the  method  by  which  it  was  done 
though  you  should  eat  the  volume  as  St. 
John  ate  the  book  in  his  Apocalypse.  The 
magic  of  the  apt  word  is  a  peculiarly  French 
gift,  and  is  somehow  connected  with  the 
Latin  world  and  with  Latin  literary  tradi 
tion,  and  especially  with  the  study  of  Horace, 
who  outshines  all  his  successors  in  the  power 
of  brevity.  Horace's  words  are  silent  light 
ning.  Now  Balzac  has  this  gift  of  the 
magical  word  as  well  as  the  quite  opposite 
gift  of  elaborate  ratiocination.  He  has  the 
gift  of  allowing  his  characters  to  speak  for 
themselves;  the  gift  of  talking  for  them; 
the  gift  of  sustaining  a  plot  as  complex  as 
Buddhist  philosophy,  and  which  moves 
through  scenes  that  are  brilliant  and  unex 
pected;  the  gift  of  creating  an  illusion  of 
realism  through  the  use  of  the  most  ex 
travagant,  romantic,  unreal  claptrap;  the 
gift  of  alternately  dazzling,  stimulating, 
and  informing  the  reader's  mind  till  the 
reader  gives  up  all  hope  of  analysing  his 
own  sensations  and  surrenders  himself  heart 
and  soul  to  the  spell  of  the  magician. 

We  must  remember  that  the  term  "real 
ism"  which  is  so  often  applied  to  Balzac,  and 


GREEK  GENIUS 

the  whole  cant  of  criticism  through  which 
Balzac's  work  is  now  viewed,  have  been  in 
vented  since  his  day,  and  are  ephemeral 
matters.  To  Balzac  his  characters  were  liv 
ing  creatures,  active  forces,  incarnate 
ideas;  and  such  they  will  remain  after  this 
shallow  and  absurd  talk  about  realism  has 
been  forgotten. 

The  internal  world  of  his  fiction  is  the  real 
world  for  Balzac,  and  he  contrives  to  make 
it  the  real  world  for  his  readers.  He  does 
this  by  methods  which  are  so  subtle  that  we 
can  rarely  perceive  them.  Neither  are  the 
methods  intentional :  they  are  instinctive,  and 
they  are  ever  new.  It  is  by  the  merest  chance 
that  one  can  discover  them. 

He  creates  his  effects  in  a  thousand  differ 
ent  ways— sometimes  dramatically,  some 
times  logically  and  with  painstaking  effort, 
sometimes  through  an  ejaculation  or  an 
aside  of  his  own  which  seems  unpremedi 
tated,  intimate,  and  has,  one  would  say,  no 
artistic  right  to  exist.  Again,  he  will  in 
troduce  a  long  anecdote,  holding  fast  to  the 
reader's  buttonhole  as  he  does  so,  and  fixing 
him  with  his  eye.  He  thinks  aloud,  he 
gropes ;  but  he  always  lays  his  hand  on  the 
truth.  Under  the  curtain  that  falls  on  a 
scene  he  sometimes  hides  a  reflection  of  such 


BALZAC 

depth  as  would  warrant  a  chapter,  and  he 
seems  not  to  know  what  he  has  done.  Turn 
the  page,  and  he  is  off  on  a  new  scent :  there 
was  no  time  for  more.  In  moments  of 
soliloquy  he  often  flashes  in  a  thought  hav 
ing  little  relation  to  the  plot,  but  which  is 
nevertheless  the  best  thing  in  the  book.  On 
other  occasions  he  does  not  take  the  trouble 
to  say  just  what  has  happened  at  a  crisis,  but 
leaves  us  to  guess  it  from  the  context.  The 
spontaneousness  of  the  fact  passes  into  Bal 
zac's  way  of  handling  it.  One  sees  it  rather 
than  reads  of  it;  one  experiences  it  rather 
than  sees  it. 

A  strange  fact  about  Balzac  is  that  he  is 
always  interesting ;  even  when  he  bores  us  he 
interests  us.  There  is  a  residuum  in  his 
thought.  We  go  back  to  it  after  the  book  is 
closed ;  we  find  it  in  our  mind  and  ponder  it. 

He  seems  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  whim  as 
to  what  he  is  going  to  say  next.  Sometimes, 
in  the  midst  of  a  love  scene,  he  will  give  a 
long  discourse  on  the  law  of  marriage, 
dumping  in  a  sociological  treatise  with  a 
certain  parade  of  learning.  Then,  perhaps, 
comes  an  episode  which  is  the  fulfilment  of 
a  dramatic  climax.  A  thousand  threads 
cross  each  other  here :  it  is  a  ron d  point  in 
the  labyrinth  of  the  book,  a  place  from 


GREEK  GENIUS 

which  one  expects  vistas  and  summaries  of 
reflections.  But  no!  Balzac  moves  on 
without  a  pause.  He  has,  it  appears,  al 
ready  made  his  effect. 

His  manner  of  procedure  in  writing  seems 
to  be  that  of  a  man  who,  having  been  a  wit 
ness  of  certain  events,  should  sit  down  and 
think  aloud  about  them.  During  the  process 
of  this  thinking  aloud  the  story  is  told.  The 
man  does  not  write  down  all  that  he  has  seen 
or  lived  through.  He  sometimes  omits  large 
portions  of  drama,  which,  nevertheless,  he 
knows  all  about.  The  events  have  occurred ; 
that  is  enough  for  Balzac.  The  reader  must 
pick  up  his  information  from  the  divagations 
of  the  witness-thinker. 

All  these  practices  are  not  the  elaborate 
devices  of  literary  art,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
are  the  habits  of  a  man  who  is  so  very  fa 
miliar  with  his  subject  that  he  can  state  it  in 
fifty  ways,  and  is,  at  best,  merely  giving  to 
the  reader  the  fringes  of  it.  His  very  long 
est  and  greatest  books  seem  to  be  truncated 
or  cut  down,  so  that  the  story  may  get  itself 
told.  He  is  obliged  to  tear  out  as  much  as 
he  tells — so  one  feels — in  order  to  finish  at 
all. 

These  books  are  often  not  even  divided 
into  chapters,  but  move,  like  the  Amazon 
O32] 


BALZAC 

River,  without  a  break,  in  one  gigantic 
stream — overpowering,  awful. 

It  is  not  only  in  his  fiction  that  he  excels. 
His  letters  to  his  sisters,  to  his  mother,  to  his 
young  nieces,  to  the  children  of  Madame 
Hanska,  are  each  and  all  the  very  perfection 
of  writing.  Their  spontaneous,  powerful, 
rushing,  humourous  gaiety  is  in  contrast  to 
the  sombreness  of  his  fiction  and  completes 
the  man.  Every  line  he  writes  is  full  of 
genius.  He  is  the  natural,  inevitable  writer. 
You  cannot  gag  him  or  dam  the  flow  of 
him :  he  writes.  His  mind  is  full  of  foison, 
and  he  is  a  great  reaper.  He  harvests  the 
crop  of  his  thoughts. 

I  will  give  a  few  random  examples  of  his 
methods,  in  order  to  remind  the  reader  of 
their  rapid  quality— a  sort  of  casual  quality, 
which  leaves  us  standing  in  the  region  of  the 
unconscious,  much  as  Rembrandt's  art  leaves 
us  there.  One  or  two  of  the  examples  shall 
be  from  La  Cousinc  Bctte. 

Madame  Hulot,  a  woman  of  fifty-five,  a 
matron  of  ideal  virtue,  is  beaten  down  by 
misfortunes  until,  for  a  moment,  she  loses 
her  moral  equilibrium.  In  a  fit  of  despair 
over  the  misfortunes  of  her  family  she  suc 
cumbs  to  the  idea  of  selling  her  own  honour 
to  a  man  who  has  formerly  made  love  to 

1:2333 


GREEK  GENIUS 

her,  and  who  is  the  only  man  that,  as  mat 
ters  stand,  can  save  the  family.  This  is 
Monsieur  Crevel.  Her  advances  are  rejected 
with  contempt.  The  shock  saves  her;  and 
she  recovers  her  moral  poise  during"  a  long 
speech  in  which  she  denounces  herself : 

"  'Assez,  monsieur  Crevel !'  dit  madame 
Hulot  en  ne  deguisant  plus  son  degout  et 
laissant  paraitre  toute  sa  honte  sur  son 
visage.  'Je  suis  punie  maintenant  au  dela 
de  mon  peche.  Ma  conscience,  si  violem- 
ment  contenue  par  la  main  de  fer  de  la 
necessite,  me  crie  a  cette  derniere  insulte  que 
de  tels  sacrifices  sont  impossibles.  Je  n'ai 
plus  de  fierte,  je  ne  me  courrouce  point 
comme  jadis,  je  ne  vous  dirai  pas :  "Sortez !" 
apres  avoir  regu  ce  coup  mortel.  J'en  ai 
perdu  le  droit — je  me  suis  offerte  a  vous, 
comme  une  prostituee.  .  .  . 

'Oui/  reprit-elle  en  repondant  a  un  geste 
de  denegation,  'j'ai  sali  ma  vie,  jusqu'ici 
pure,  par  une  intention  ignoble;  et  .  .  .  je 
suis  sans  excuse,  je  le  savais!  .  .  .  Je  me- 
rite  toutes  les  injures  dont  vous  m'accablez! 
Que  la  volonte  de  Dieu  s'accomplisse !  S'il 
veut  la  mort  de  deux  etres  dignes  d'aller  a 
lui,  qu'ils  meurent,  je  les  pleurerai,  je  prierai 
pour  eux!  S'il  veut  1'humiliation  de  notre 


BALZAC 

famille,  courbons-nous  sous  Tepee  venge- 
resse,  et  baisons-la,  Chretiens  que  nous 
sommes!  Je  sais  comment  expier  cette 
honte  d'un  moment  qui  sera  le  tourment  de 
tous  mes  derniers  jours.  Ce  n'est  plus  ma- 
dame  Hulot,  monsieur,  qui  vous  parle ;  c'est 
la  pauvre,  Thumble  pecheresse,  la  chretienne 
dont  le  coeur  n'aura  plus  qu'un  seul  senti 
ment,  le  repentir,  et  qui  sera  toute  a  la  priere 
et  a  la  charite.  Je  ne  puis  etre  que  la  der- 
niere  des  femmes  et  la  premiere  des  repenties 
par  la  puissance  de  ma  faute.  Vous  avez  ete 
rinstrument  de  mon  retour  a  la  raison,  a  la 
voix  de  Dieu  qui  maintenant  parle  en  moi,  je 
vous  remercie!  .  .  .' 

Elle  tremblait  de  ce  tremblement  qui,  de- 
puis  ce  moment  ne  la  quitta  plus.  Sa  voix 
pleine  de  douceur  contrastait  avec  la  fievreuse 
parole  de  la  femme  decidee  au  deshonneur 
pour  sauver  une  famille.  Le  sang  aban- 
donna  ses  joues,  elle  devint  blanche  et  ses 
yeux  furent  sees.'* 

Crevel  is  touched  by  the  beauty  of  Madame 
Hulot's  character,  and  words  of  unexpected 
sympathy  are  exchanged  between  them. 
Then  he  says : 

"  'Ne  tremblez  plus  ainsi !' 
O35] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

'Est-ce  que  je  tremble?'  demanda  la  ba- 
ronne,  qui  ne  s'apercevait  pas  de  cette  infir- 
mite  si  rapidement  venue." 

Balzac  has  here  somehow  succeeded  in  refer 
ring  to  the  trembling  of  Madame  Hulot  as 
if  it  were  a  thing  with  which  we  were  fa 
miliar, — "ce  tremblement  qui,  depuis  ce 
moment,  ne  la  quitta  pas," — as  if  we  had  all 
known  the  lady  in  her  later  years,  but  had 
not  heard  before  how  her  infirmity  first 
came  upon  her. 

But  there  is  yet  deeper  meaning  in  the 
scene.  Madame  Hulot's  trembling-fit  re 
sulted,  as  one  feels,  from  her  recovery  of  her 
mental  stability  at  the  expense  of  her  ner 
vous  system.  The  energy  which  rushed  to 
her  mind  deserted  her  muscles.  Balzac  had 
thought  all  this  out ;  and  in  reading  of  it  wt 
are  moved  not  merely  by  his  admirable 
brevity  of  expression,  but  by  the  fundamen 
tal  truth  at  the  bottom  of  the  whole  matter. 
An  author  of  this  sort  is  more  god  than  ar 
tist.  He  trusts  to  his  material :  the  saga  will 
deliver  itself. 

In  the  course  of  the  same  story  the  odious 
retired  shopkeeper,  Crevel,  announces  that 
he  is  going  to  marry  the  wicked  adventuress 
who  is  the  destroyer  of  all  the  happiness  of 

036 : 


BALZAC 

his  family.  The  family  is  outraged,  and  a 
scene  of  general  expostulation  follows. 

"La  baronne  fit  un  signe  a  la  comtesse, 
qui,  prenant  son  enfant  dans  ses  bras,  lui  dit : 

'Aliens,  viens  prendre  ton  bain,  Wences- 
las !  Adieu,  monsieur  Crevel  F 

La  baronne  salua  Crevel  en  silence,  et 
Crevel  ne  put  s'empecher  de  sourire  en 
voyant  1'etonnement  de  1'enfant  quand  ilse 
vit  menace  de  ce  bain  improvise." 

This  astonishment  of  the  child  is  as  real  and 
as  accidental  to  the  reader  as  it  was  to  Bal 
zac  himself. 

Some  years  ago  I  went  to  a  concert  at  St. 
James's  Hall  in  London.  In  one  of  the  in 
termissions  I  recognised  a  very  smart  gentle 
man  at  whose  house  I  had  been  fifteen  years 
before.  I  thought  I  would  say  how-d'-ye-do 
to  him,  though  I  inwardly  knew  it  would  be 
a  foolish  thing  to  attempt.  I  therefore  ap 
proached  him  and  made  myself  known,  and 
was  shaken  off  in  the  approved  London  man 
ner  which  was  in  fashion  between  the  Fall 
of  Napoleon  and  the  close  of  the  Boer  War. 
As  I  sat  thinking  and  wondering  over  this 
rebuff,  I  observed  another  very  smart  gentle 
man  approach  the  first,  and  the  two  shook 


GREEK  GENIUS 

hands,  saluted,  dropped  eye-glasses,  cleared 
their  throats,  and  paused  in  the  correct  man 
ner.  In  Elizabeth's  time  they  would  have 
been  slapping  their  thighs  and  swearing 
the  oaths  of  the  season.  Were  they  not  two 
bawcocks  in  excellent  feather  ? 

Yesterday  I  opened  Balzac  and  read  the 
following  description — which,  by  the  way,  is 
dragged  in  by  the  heels,  and  has  no  dramatic 
context : 

"Le  due  d'Herouville,  poli  comme  un 
grand  seigneur  avec  tout  le  monde,  eut  pour 
le  comte  de  la  Pal  ferine  ce  salut  particulier 
qui,  sans  accuser  1'estime  ou  I'mtimite,  dit  a 
tout  le  monde:  'Nous  sommes  de  la  meme 
f amille,  de  la  meme  race,  nous  nous  valons !' 
Ce  salut,  le  siboleth  de  Taristocratie,  a  ete 
cree  pour  le  desespoir  des  gens  d'esprit  de  la 
haute  bourgeoisie." 

Balzac,  it  will  be  noted,  has  explained  the 
psychology  of  the  greetings,  which  remains 
the  same  throughout  the  ages.  He  has 
shown  the  part  which  the  spectator  plays  in 
the  comedy.  Is  not  this  genius?  Is  not  an 
eye  like  this  one  of  the  great  orbs  of  litera 
ture,  and  worthy  to  be  named  with  the  eye 
of  Aristotle  or  of  Dante? 


BALZAC 

At  the  opening  of  Le  Colonel  Chabert 
Balzac  describes  the  entry  of  the  destitute 
old  Colonel  into  the  clerks'  room  of  a 
notary's  office.  The  clerks  are  eating  their 
improvised  lunch  and  chatting.  None  of 
them  has  any  attention  to  give  to  the 
stranger,  and  his  knock,  if  he  gave  one,  is 
not  answered. 

"  'Ou  est  mon  canif?' 

'Je  dejeune !' 

'Va  te  faire  lanlaire,  voila  un  pate  sur  la 
requete !' 

'Chut,  messieurs!' 

Ces  diverses  exclamations  partirent  a  la 
fois  au  moment  ou  le  vieux  plaideur  ferma 
la  porte  avec  cette  sorte  d'humilite  qui  dena 
ture  les  mouvements  de  I'homme  malheu- 
reux.  L'inconnu  essaya  de  sourire,  mais  les 
muscles  de  son  visage  se  detendirent  quand 
il  eut  vainement  cherche  quelques  symptomes 
d'amenite  sur  les  visages  inexorablement 
insouciants  des  six  clercs." 

We  see  the  poor  outcast  shutting  the  door 
in  a  never-to-be-forgotten  attitude  of  abjec 
tion.  He  is  soon  dismissed  amid  the  jeers 
of  the  company,  after  which  the  clerks  fall 
into  conversation  about  him. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

*  'Ne  voila-t-il  pas  un  fameux  crane  ?'  dit 
Simonnin  sans  attendre  que  le  vieillard  cut 
ferme  la  porte. 

11  a  1'air  d'un  deterre/  reprit  le  clerc. 

'C'est  quelque  colonel  qui  reclame  un  ar- 
riere/  dit  le  maitre  clerc. 

'Non,  c'est  un  ancien  concierge/  dit  Gode- 
schal. 

Tarions  qu'il  est  noble/  s'ecria  Boucard. 

*Je  parie  qu'il  a  ete  portier/  repliqua 
Godeschal.  'Les  portiers  sont  seuls  doues 
par  la  nature  de  carricks  uses,  huileux  et 
dechiquetes  par  le  has  comme  Test  celui  de 
ce  vieux  bonhomme.  Vous  n'avez  done  vu 
ni  ses  bottes  eculees  qui  prennent  1'eau,  ni  sa 
cravate  qui  lui  sert  de  chemise  ?  II  a  couche 
sous  les  ponts/ 

'II  pourrait  etre  noble  et  avoir  tire  le  cor 
don!'  s'ecria  Desroches.  'Qa  c'est  vu/  ' 

The  clerks  determine  to  recall  the  old  gen 
tleman  and  ask  him  his  name.  Again  he 
climbs  the  stairs  and  confronts  his  tormen 
tors  with  humility.  Balzac  has  enhanced 
the  pathos  of  old  Chabert's  figure  by  this 
background  which  shows  us  the  flippancy, 
the  natural,  unconscious  cruelty  of  youth. 
The  old  man  is  dismissed  at  last,  and  there 
follows  a  description  of  the  happy,  aimless, 


BALZAC 

genial  chatter  of  the  clerks  as  they  resume 
their  duties.  Finally  Balzac  says : 

"Cette  scene  represente  un  dcs  mille  plai- 
sirs  qui,  plus  tard,  font  dire  en  pensant  a  la 
jeunesse: — C'etait  le  bon  temps/' 

The  italics  are  mine.  Here,  by  a  momen 
tary  throb  of  feeling,  Balzac  has  touched  the 
very  nerve  of  truth.  Out  of  the  sordid  dust- 
heap  has  sprung  a  flower.  These  dreadful 
clerks  have  opened  a  view  into  paradise. 

At  what  moment,  we  ask  ourselves,  did 
Balzac  begin  to  vibrate  with  this  lyric  note, 
so  unexpectedly  and  so  strongly  struck?  If 
it  were  Victor  Hugo  or  Dickens  we  could 
guess,  but  about  Balzac  we  know  nothing. 

All  this  manner  of  procedure  is  very  un 
like  the  Gallic  way  of  doing  anything.  The 
artistic  vice  of  the  French  nation  is  a  certain 
virtuosity,  which  they  love  to  throw  into 
everything  they  do.  I  have  seen  a  French 
man  play  a  Bach  sonata  for  the  violin,  and 
play  it  extremely  well — but  for  the  fact  that 
he  seemed  to  be  doing  it  with  a  foil.  He 
wished  us  all  to  cry,  "Touche!"  at  the  finish. 
The  whole  of  French  art  and  architecture, 


GREEK  GENIUS 

French  music,  manners,  and  cookery,  betray 
a  delight  in  form  for  form's  sake. 

"S'il  vous  plait,  madame!"  says  the 
farmer's  daughter  who  has  pushed  a  hand 
cart  of  artichokes  for  nine  miles  to  reach 
the  gutter  of  the  Rue  St.  Honore;  "s'il  vous 
plait,"  she  says  to  the  frumpy  old  concierge, 
as  she  hands  over  the  vegetables.  "Merci, 
mademoiselle !"  replies  the  concierge,  giving 
some  pennies.  I  have  often  wondered 
whether  the  excellent  manners  of  the  peas 
antry  are  not  due  to  the  Ancien  Regime. 
The  Revolution  destroyed  the  nobles,  but 
the  peasantry  picked  up  politeness  from  the 
aristocracy  as  they  drove  it  towards  the  guil 
lotine.  I  can  hardly  believe  that  the  old 
commeres  in  times  before  the  Revolution 
called  each  other  "madame."  All  this  for 
malism  is  part  of  the  play-instinct  and  of 
the  aesthetic  passion  of  the  Ancien  Regime. 
It  is  a  part  of  that  external  grace  which 
made  life  beautiful  and  turned  every  avoca 
tion  into  an  art. 

Such  was  the  gift  of  Old  France  to  the 
world :  her  nobles  invented  napkins  and  bou- 
tonnieres  and  a  good  way  of  doing  every 
thing;  and  most  of  the  social  civilisation  that 
we  know  is  due  to  France's  love  of  form. 
The  old  French  monarchy,  from  Louis  XIII 


BALZAC 

to  Louis  XVI,  was  the  central  social  bureau 
for  humanity,  and  taught  everyone  the 
proper  way  of  writing,  building,  thinking, 
standing,  complimenting,  fighting,  and  liv 
ing. 

This  belief  that  form  is  an  essential  to 
all  kinds  of  conduct  is,  of  course,  ever  a  lit 
tle  at  war  with  the  individual.  The  greatest 
writers  of  France,  whether  they  lived  before 
or  after  the  classic  period,  have  not  always 
shared  the  conventional  French  spirit.  Mon 
taigne,  Rabelais,  the  Due  de  Saint-Simon, 
and  Balzac  are  writers  of  a  popular  school, 
indulging  at  will  in  vulgarisms  and  express 
ing  themselves  with  a  sort  of  mediaeval  free 
dom  which  resembles  the  English  rather  than 
the  French  way  of  writing.  All  four  of 
them  despise  the  academic  spirit,  and  run 
about  like  colts.  To  those  Frenchmen  who 
accept  their  own  classic  tradition,  the  writ 
ers  I  have  named  savour  a  little  of  barbar 
ism;  to  men  of  other  nationalities  these 
barbarians  of  France  are  the  only  writers  of 
France  who  are  quite  free  from  the  curling- 
tongs. 

Balzac  is  completely  outside  the  frame  of 
national  correctness,  and  his  language,  as 
even  a  foreigner  can  feel,  is  academically 
outrageous.  He  is  of  the  people,  he  is  a  man 

1:243] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  genius,  he  is  unconscious,  indifferent, 
preoccupied,  whirled  away  in  a  chariot 
drawn  by  dragons.  He  is  well  fed,  familiar, 
serious.  He  talks  with  the  mouths  of  fifty 
dialects,  with  the  slangs  of  every  province 
and  every  arrondissement,  with  the  preten 
sions  and  educational  imperfections  peculiar 
to  each  of  his  two  thousand  characters,  with 
the  exuberance  of  a  gigantic  nature.  What, 
then,  has  become  of  the  Academy?  The 
Academy  must  be  picked  out  of  the  debris, 
if  the  fragments  can  be  found.  Balzac  up 
sets  the  apple-cart  of  French  classicism,  and 
in  doing  so  he  makes  the  strongest  com 
mentary  on  it  that  has  ever  been  made. 
Without  such  an  upsetting  there  could  have 
been  no  Balzac. 

The  dream  that  Balzac  dreamed  was  not 
a  tale  or  a  series  of  tales ;  it  was  a  society,,  or, 
more  accurately  speaking,  a  mythology. 
Instead  of  taking  fifty  characters,  as  the 
Greeks  did,  and  writing  plays  about  the 
dramatic  moments  in  their  lives,  Balzac 
takes  a  whole  epoch — and  a  very  brilliant, 
topsyturvy  epoch — and  carries  in  his  head 
the  lives  of  all  its  inhabitants  from  youth  to 
old  age.  Roughly  speaking,  this  epoch  was 
his  own  time,  and  it  was,  I  suppose,  the  most 
dramatic  epoch  in  history.  If  you  will  read 


BALZAC 

in  M.  Lenotre's  works  those  sketches  of  the 
odd  personalities  which  came  to  the  top  in 
the  Revolution,  you  will  find  more  samples 
of  incredible  transformation,  more  varieties 
of  fantastic  change  in  role,  than  you  could 
easily  dig  up  out  of  the  rest  of  the  memoirs 
of  Europe.  The  rise  of _  the  Napoleonic 
world,  the  fall  of  the  ancient  kingdom,  the 
purgatorial  and  infernal  interval  of  the  Re 
volution  which  connected  these  two  eras, 
would  have  been  enough  for  Dante.  But 
Balzac  had  also  the  Restoration  to  draw  on, 
and  the  age  of  Louis  Philippe.  I  suppose 
that  one  could  hardly  put  one's  hand  on  a 
Frenchman,  of  whatever  caste  or  class,  born 
in  1780  and  who  survived  until  1850,  whose 
life  would  not  show  changes,  powerfully  col 
oured  and  filled  with  frantic  interest  for  a 
novelist.  Balzac  perceived  this  in  his  earliest 
years,  and  filled  his  mind  with  typical  biog 
raphies—of  personages  already  costumed 
and  documented,  who  lived  in  the  closet  of 
his  mind,  ready  to  walk  on  the  stage  of  his 
fiction ;  men  with  ancestors  and  family  his 
tories,  and  with  private  lives  that  are  full  of 
kaleidoscopic  change.  They  are  the  citizens 
of  the  imaginative  world  where  Balzac  him 
self  lived.  If  the  story  in  hand  needs  a 
notary  or  a  senator  or  a  Napoleonic  general, 

O45] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

a  Jewish  banker,  a  hangman's  clerk,  Balzac 
already  has  the  man  in  his  greenroom.  He 
does  not  have  to  create  him,  as  every  other 
novelist  must  do;  he  simply  refers  to  him — 
taps  a  bell,  and  in  he  walks.  The  wonderful 
single-phrase  descriptions  which  gleam  on 
every  page  of  the  novels  owe  their  brilliancy 
to  this  familiarity  of  the  author  with  his 
characters. 

Balzac  was  a  philosopher,  and  he  had  been 
laying  up  observation,  as  the  bee  lays  up 
honey,  for  years.  His  tale  is  a  demonstra 
tion;  it  is  a  stair  to  some  thought;  it  exists 
not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  re 
moter  truth;  it  is  an  illustration  and  a 
parable.  Old  thoughts,  observations  made 
long  ago,  the  wine  that  has  lain  for  nine 
years  in  the  cellar,  types  seen,  philosophies 
guessed  at,  beliefs  that  are  older  than  the 
work  in  hand,  but  leap  out  upon  the  work  in 
hand  as  fire  leaps  towards  the  electric  needle 
— these  things  are  what  give  life  and  felicity 
to  his  vehicle. 

The  vehicle  was  the  Comedie  Humaine, 
as  he  assembled  it  in  his  own  mind.  Here 
he  created  for  himself  a  language  that  could 
say  anything.  The  characters  themselves 
are  not  men,  but  projections  of  thought;  the 
colours  in  them  result  from  the  analysis  of 

t:  346:1 


BALZAC 

light.  Colours  made  in  this  way  are  the  only 
colours  that  will  hold;  for  colours  that  are 
ignorantly  copied  out  of  nature  soon  fade 
into  nondescript.  There  is  nothing  in  Bal 
zac  which  is  copied  from  nature.  Every 
thing  has  been  first  understood  and  then 
arranged  so  as  to  symbolise  nature.  There 
is  nothing  in  Balzac  that  is  not  based  on  sane 
speculation,  or  that  will  not  go  back  into  the 
ten  commandments.  There  is  nothing  that 
exists  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  picturesque. 
Everything  has  been  drenched  in  meaning. 

That  it  means  so  much  to  us  who  have  no 
part  or  lot  in  it  is  proof  that  this  world  of 
Balzac's  is  a  world  of  myth.  These  weird 
creatures  of  Balzac's  brain— Rastignac, 
Goriot,  Nucingen,  Grandet — are  not  of  the 
actual  world.  They  are  Gothic  extrava 
gances.  Time  may  turn  them  into  carica 
tures,  as  time  has  begun  to  do  with  the 
creations  of  Dickens  and  Victor  Hugo,  but 
as  yet  the  figures  of  Balzac  are  thrilling  real 
ities — unreal  in  form,  true  in  substance,  and 
among  the  most  moving  creations  of  human 
wit. 

The  difference  between  him  and  other 
writers  of  fiction  is  that  he  did  not  wait  for 
a  story,  but  created  a  miniature  world  in 
which  his  stories  are  all  related  to  one  an- 

r.  247:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

other.  He  is  not  content  that  a  novel  shall 
be  a  unity.  A  novel  is  only  a  spoke  in  the 
wheel  of  his  unity.  Each  novel  is  a  frag 
ment,  and  yet  it  is  as  big  as  the  Coliseum, 
and  is  meant  to  suggest  the  larger  world  of 
thought  in  which  Balzac  himself  is  living. 
He  succeeds  in  this  ambition,  this  desire  to 
make  us  feel  that  all  these  characters  and 
dramas  are  parts  of  something  else ;  and  in 
this  he  resembles  Dante.  Every  line  in  Bal 
zac  bears  a  living  relation  to  every  other 
line.  We  cannot  know  just  what  that  rela 
tion  is,  but  we  feel  that  there  is  a  connection. 
It  is  as  if  we  were  walking  on  the  surface  of 
some  sphere  and  had  gained  a  conviction  as 
to  the  size  and  sweep  of  it  through  our  feet. 

Balzac  seems  to  be  like  Rembrandt  and 
Shakespeare  in  that  he  is  always  Balzac,  and 
yet  he  never  does  the  same  thing  twice.  He 
is  always  experimenting.  He  lives  for  him 
self.  He  somehow  housed  the  dream  of  his 
existence  in  his  characters.  He  always 
maintained  that  his  writings  were  but  pages 
out  of  one  great  book.  It  is  the  triumph 
of  contemplation. 

He  has,  as  it  were,  no  outer  life :  he  is  all 
artist.  His  works  are  not  really  works  at 
all,  but  are  what  is  left  over  in  the  mere 
process  of  the  artist's  existence.  In  making 


BALZAC 

them  he  is  experiencing,  he  is  searching. 
One  cannot  tell  how  much  is  improvisation 
and  how  much  is  calculation  in  Balzac.  He 
will  often  preach  extempore  for  thirty  sec 
onds,  and  then  go  on  describing  accessories, 
like  a  stage  carpenter,  for  half  an  hour.  He 
is  almost  devoid  of  virtuosity.  I  must  admit 
that  sometimes,  in  a  preface,  he  parades  the 
number  of  books  he  has  read;  and  that  we 
know  he  was  amazed  at  his  own  talent  and 
thought  himself  as  great  as  Napoleon.  But 
this  impinging  of  his  self-consciousness  upon 
the  field  of  his  work  is  very  rare. 

The  gloom  of  Balzac  is  against  him,  to 
my  mind;  it  is  a  weakness.  If  he  were  still 
greater  than  he  is,  he  would  be  more  cheer 
ful.  But  let  us  consider  his  dark,  peculiar 
mood. 

Balzac,  like  Dante,  suffers  from  a  lack  of 
humour;  but  one  feels  the  absolute  benevo 
lence  of  Balzac,  whereas  we  know  that 
Dante's  benevolence  is  cut  into  by  political 
hatreds  and  by  petty  theological  dogmas. 
Dante  is  not  a  good  fellow,  but  Balzac  is  as 
warm  as  the  sun.  The  young  person  will 
not  feel  this  warmth;  for  Balzac's  fondness 
for  shadows,  his  love  of  accumulating  dam 
nations  and  allowing  them  to  rain  and  pour 
down  the  pit  into  the  infernal  regions  below, 

£249:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

sweeping  virtuous  persons  along  with  them, 
is  unpleasing  and  confusing  to  the  con 
science  of  the  young.  His  almost  exclusive 
interest  in  the  forces  which  grind  downward 
is  a  weakness.  There  are  forces  in  the  uni 
verse  which  grind  upward,  bringing  good 
out  of  evil  and  peace  out  of  sin.  Why  could 
not  Balzac  have  given  us  pictures  of  these 
heaven-ascending  and  angelic  powers  more 
frequently  than  he  did?  Thus  reasons 
youth,  and  I  sympathise  with  it;  but  as  one 
grows  older  and  becomes  more  astute,  one 
perceives  that  there  is  a  large  element  of  the 
conventional,  of  the  intellectual,  of  the 
purely  aesthetic,  in  Balzac's  tragedies.  We 
must  not  weep  too  hard  over  the  pains  of 
the  virtuous  in  Balzac,  over  the  Goriots  and 
the  Madame  Hulots— no,  nor  even  over  the 
punishment  of  the  wicked.  All  these  per 
sonages  are  symbols,  and  we  gradually  come 
to  feel  more  distinctly  the  goodness  and 
purity  of  the  great  brain  and  the  great  heart 
that  have  set  these  symbols  in  motion.  I 
suppose  there  does  not  exist  in  the  world  a 
more  powerful  picture  of  domestic  infelicity 
than  Balzac  gives  in  describing  the  Hulot 
family  in  La  Cousine  Bette.  The  tragedy  is 
set  forth  with  the  remorselessness  of  mathe 
matics  and  the  power  of  Niagara.  It  is 


BALZAC 

painful,  it  is  horrible.  One  wonders  how  an 
author  can  bear  to  depict  misery  at  such 
length  and  in  such  detail.  But  in  the  midst 
of  the  whole  relation  —  that  is  to  say,  at 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  octavo  pages 
from  the  beginning  of  the  tale,  and  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  before  the  end  —  Balzac  casts 
in  the  following  sturdy,  sensible,  unemo 
tional  paragraph,  which  explains  his  rela 
tion  to  the  whole  matter  : 

"Cette  esquisse  permet  aux  ames  inno- 
centes  de  deviner  les  differents  ravages  que 
les  madame  Marneffe  exercent  dans  les  fa 
milies,  et  par  quels  moyens  elles  atteignent 
de  pauvres  femmes  vertueuses,  en  apparence 
si  loin  d'elles.  Mais,  si  Ton  veut  transporter 
par  la  pensee  ces  troubles  a  1'etage  superieur 
de  la  societe,  pres  du  trone;  en  voyant  ce 
que  doivent  avoir  coute  les  maitresses  des 
rois,  on  mesure  1'etendue  des  obligations  du 
peuple  envers  ses  souverains  quand  ils  don- 
nent  1'exemple  des  bonnes  mceurs  et  de  la 
vie  de  famille." 


There  is  a  benevolent-thinking  person  out 
side  the  phantasmagoria  of  the  Comcdic  Hu- 
maine  —  and  the  sensibleness  and  bonhomie 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  this  great  heart  is  what  blesses  the  Co- 
medie. 

There  is  another  element  to  be  consid 
ered.  In  studying  the  shadows  in  any  tragic 
art  we  must  take  account  of  tradition. 
Achilles  must  die :  Fate  claims  him.  The 
child  in  the  audience  cries  when  he  first  un 
derstands  this;  and  the  unsophisticated  are 
made  to  suffer  by  the  cruelties  of  art.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  Mediterranean,  on  the 
other  hand,  frankly  enjoy  tragedy,  because 
they  invented  it;  they  know  it  is  a  sham,  a 
mere  idea-in-action.  Now  the  French  pos 
sess  a  bit  of  coast  on  the  Mediterranean 
which,  in  spite  of  the  fun  the  Parisians  make 
of  its  inhabitants,  is  the  most  important  fact 
in  French  history,  and  has  controlled  the 
development  of  French  art  in  all  its  forms. 
The  Frenchman  is  a  more  intellectual  being 
than  the  Saxon  or  the  Angle.  He  does  not 
enjoy  a  joke  against  himself,  but  he  enjoys 
a  tragedy  against  himself,  if  it  is  a  good 
tragedy.  The  Comte  de  Segur,  aide-de 
camp  to  Napoleon,  saw  the  retreat  from 
Moscow  with  the  eyes  of  Thucydides. 
Neither  his  admiration  for  Napoleon,  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  his  sorrow  in  France's  down 
fall,  on  the  other,  beclouds  the  judgment  of 
the  young  writer.  He  speaks  as  a  pure  in- 


BALZAC 

telligence,  and  he  perceives  the  magnificent 
tragic  elements  which  ruled  the  entire  drama 
of  the  retreat.  In  the  same  spirit  Victor 
Hugo  described  Waterloo,  and  Zola  de 
scribed  the  Franco-German  War.  No  Eng 
lish,  German,  or  American  man  of  letters, 
in  dealing  with  the  misfortunes  of  his  coun 
try,  could  display  an  intellectual  detachment 
of  this  sort.  His  self-consciousness  \vould 
be  too  great,  and  his  aesthetic  interest  too 
feeble,  to  permit  of  his  describing  a  national 
catastrophe, — no  matter  how  magnificent,— 
with  artistic  zeal. 

There  is  in  Balzac  a  meridional  feeling 
that  tragedy  must  be  tragic.  If  a  woman  is 
to  sacrifice  life  and  honour,  she  must  not 
merely  go  to  the  brink  and  then  be  saved 
through  a  trick  of  the  plot:  she  must  go  to 
the  bottom.  If  a  man  is  to  die  of  drink,  he 
must  be  reduced  to  the  meanest  attic  by 
delirium  tremcns,  and  his  children  must  beg 
their  bread.  There  is  a  non-sentimental, 
workmanlike  thoroughness  in  this  march 
of  evil  that  hurts  the  feelings  of  Anglo- 
Saxons,  who  cannot  accept  these  matters 
as  good  symbolism  and  telling  art,  but  keep 
on  being  sorry  that  Achilles  must  die. 

I  suggest  this  view  of  Balzac's  dark  and 
tragic  tendencies  the  rather  that  I  find  my- 
053] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

self  less  offended  by  his  gloom  the  older  I 
grow.  It  becomes  ever  more  clear  to  me 
that  Balzac's  melancholy  is  the  melancholy 
of  the  artist,  not  of  the  cynic.  It  is  poetic 
melancholy,  and  his  tragedy  is  largely  con 
ventional,  as  all  good  tragedy  ought  to  be. 

There  is  a  secret  about  all  great  art,  and 
the  secret  is  as  profound  in  the  case  of  writ 
ing  as  in  the  case  of  music.  The  power  that 
holds  us  is  something  deeper  than  all  expla 
nation,  than  all  criticism.  The  world  con 
tains  not  only  death-chairs,  which  kill  men 
through  a  low  and  alternating  electric  cur 
rent,  but  life-chairs,  which  vitalise  men 
through  an  exceedingly  high  and  perfectly 
steady  current,  and  the  experience  in  each 
case  is  unconscious.  We  step  into  the  vor 
tex,  the  power  is  turned  on,  and  something 
happens  which  controls  and  changes  us. 

Balzac  is  such  a  life-chair.  People  seek 
him  for  various  reasons.  Many  read  him 
for  the  story.  They  plunge  into  the  unend 
ing  romance  of  him,  just  as  the  mediaeval 
reader  plunged  into  The  Romaunt  of  the 
Rose;  others  read  Balzac  for  his  pictures  of 
manners,  or  of  character,  or  for  his  wise 
remarks  on  life.  Still  others  read  him  in 
search  of  metaphysical  ideas.  These  are 
often  distressed  by  the  tale  and  indifferent  to 


BALZAC 

the  fate  of  its  characters ;  yet  they  are  held 
to  the  task  of  understanding  it,  they  must 
know  what  Balzac  is  driving  at.  I  myself 
often  finish  a  book  of  Balzac's  almost  wish 
ing  that  I  had  never  begun  it.  His  books 
add  a  new  duty  to  life.  To  read  one  of  them 
is  like  having  a  live  crab  entangled  in  one's 
hair :  there  is  no  quick  way  of  getting  him 
out. 

And  yet  perhaps  all  of  these  various 
kinds  of  readers  are  brothers  in  destiny.  The 
interest  of  the  story,  the  descriptions  of 
manners,  the  philosophic  appeal,  are  all 
merely  baits  that  lead  different  men  to  put 
their  necks  into  the  collar,  or  to  sit  in  the 
life-chair.  The  books  begin  lumberingly; 
and  then,  suddenly,  we  are  caught,  we  are  in 
the  throes,  we  are  under  the  waves.  Our 
brains  have  been  brought  into  contact  with 
a  big  dynamic  thinking  apparatus  which  con 
nects  us  with  the  maelstrom  of  infinity. 

We  should  use  no  method  in  dealing  with 
Balzac,  but  should  approach  him  through 
accident  and  chaotically,  pulling  down  one 
of  his  books  occasionally  to  see  if  it  speaks 
to  us.  The  scholars  have  tried  to  measure 
him.  They  have  walked  over  his  huge  back 
like  inch-worms.  Even  Sainte-Beuve,  the 


GREEK  GENIUS 

most  liberal  of  the  Frenchmen,  tries  to 
"place"  Balzac.  But  the  jug  is  too  wide  for 
the  shelf :  the  critic  is  left  with  the  sprawling 
author  in  his  arms. 

One  should  not  try  to  know  one's  Balzac 
nor  feel  any  responsibility  towards  him.  His 
merits  dodge  the  searchlight  and  thereafter 
walk  abroad  in  the  dusk,  like  shy  leopards 
with  velvet  feet.  You  cannot  be  sure  of 
finding  them  or  of  showing  them  to  another ; 
they  are  intimate  and  personal  things.  Those 
happy  words,  odd  hints  and  phrases,  in  Bal 
zac  are  part  of  the  great  unspoken,  moving 
drama  at  the  back  of  his  mind.  They  live  in 
a  space  of  three  dimensions,  and  we  cannot 
get  them  to  stick  upon  our  flat  page. 

The  other  day  I  opened  the  Medecin  de 
Campagne  with  innocence,  because  I  had 
never  heard  of  it.  During  the  first  twenty- 
five  pages  I  became  bored,  because  I  had 
hoped  for  a  detective  story,  and  the  thing 
seemed  to  be  turning  into  a  didactic  romance 
about  the  good  citizen.  I  had  dreadful 
recollections  of  Harriet  Martineau's  tales, 
and  the  teaching  of  economic  truth  through 
fiction.  The  scheme  of  the  book  is  to  sug 
gest  that  a  single  man  may  transform  a 
whole  countryside  from  a  wilderness  to  a 
paradise  in  the  course  of  a  few  years.  The 

056:1 


BALZAC 

Medecln  de  Campagne  is  a  saint,  but  a  new 
kind  of  saint — a  social  worker.  I  was 
browsing  my  way  through  the  book  when  I 
came  across  a  thought  that  was  familiar, — 
namely,  that  the  defective  classes  are  a 
source  of  piety. 

"Admirable  religion!  elle  a  place  les 
secours  d'une  bienfaisance  aveugle  pres 
d'une  aveugle  infortune.  La  ou  se  trouvent 
des  cretins,  la  population  croit  que  la  pre 
sence  d'un  etre  de  cette  espece  porte  bonheur 
a  la  famille.  Cette  croyance  sert  a  rendre 
douce  une  vie  qui,  dans  le  sein  des  villes, 
serait  condamnee  aux  rigueurs  d'un  fausse 
philanthropic  et  a  la  discipline  d'un  hospice. 
Dans  la  vallee  superieure  de  1'Isere,  ou  ils 
abondent,  les  cretins  vivent  en  plein  air  avec 
les  troupeaux  qu'ils  sont  dresses  a  garder. 
Au  moins  sont-ils  libres  et  respectes  comme 
doit  1'etre  le  malheur." 

This  passage  would  have  passed  over  me  as 
a  commonplace  reflection,  but  that  I  hap 
pened  to  be  familiar  with  the  life  and  writ 
ings  of  Dr.  Samuel  Gridley  Howe,  the  great 
American  philanthropist,  who  began  his  life 
as  a  Philhellene  in  Byron's  time,  became 
famous  at  a  later  date  through  teaching 


GREEK  GENIUS 

deaf-mutes  to  read  and  write,  and  ended  his 
life  as  the  patriarch  of  every  form  of 
beneficence.  Now  Dr.  Howe  disapproved 
of  confining  the  defective  classes  in  institu 
tions.  He  believed  in  leaving  them  with 
their  families,  or  in  farming  them  out  among 
kind  people  in  the  country.  I  have  read 
eloquent  reports  made  by  Dr.  Howe  at  the 
time  he  was  at  the  head  of  all  the  charities 
of  Massachusetts  (that  is  to  say,  about 
1865-1875),  which  are  no  more  than  dis 
quisitions  on  the  words  of  Balzac  which  I 
have  quoted.  Was  Balzac  in  1835  familiar 
with  the  advanced  scientific  theories  of 
criminology  which  Dr.  Howe  put  into  prac 
tice  in  1875?  Or  did  Balzac,  through  a 
mere  act  of  intuition  in  imagining  a  modern 
saint,  arrive  at  certain  ideas  peculiar  to 
Howe,  who  was  a  typical  modern  saint? 
Balzac  gives  the  elements  of  the  modern 
citizen-saint  much  as  a  mathematician  might 
give  the  solution  of  a  problem.  This  whole 
story  suggests  Howe. 

Balzac  seems  to  be  able  to  manufacture 
humanity ;  he  uses  live  creatures  to  state  his 
thought.  When  you  or  I  write  an  essay,  a 
sermon,  or  a  treatise,  we  deduce  arguments 
and  weave  a  net  of  ideas.  All  these  ideas 
are  portions  of  humanity,  and  could  really 


BALZAC 

exist  only  in  live  men.  Balzac  knows  this, 
and  knows  it  so  well  that  the  ideas  are  not 
true  to  him,  ideas  are  not  ideas  at  all  unless 
they  are  seen  as  living  characters.  He 
thinks  in  characters,  as  the  dramatists  do. 
His  power  of  thought  is  so  comprehensive 
that  it  makes  things  vibrate  far  and  near. 
Before  he  has  done  with  a  subject  the  idea 
has  been  put  into  a  shape  where  it  seems  to 
be  an  ineradicable  living  verity,  a  part  of 
humanity,  true  for  yesterday,  true  for  Pata 
gonia  and  for  Massachusetts  and  for  1950. 

M.  Faguet  says  very  decisively  that  Bal 
zac  is  no  thinker;  but  that  is  because  the 
stage  of  Balzac's  thought  is  so  immense  that 
M.  Faguet  does  not  feel  that  he  is  in  a  the 
atre  at  all.  No  one  has  taken  his  tickets. 
The  Three  Fatal  Judges  of  the  Underworld, 
who  sit  with  red  ribbons  in  the  lapels  of 
their  evening  coats  in  the  foyer  of  the  Fran- 
gais,  are  not  seen  in  Balzac.  "Bah!"  says 
the  Academicien,  "this  is  no  theatre :  it  is  a 
Bartholomew  fair!" 

Whether  it  be  a  fair  or  a  theatre,  the 
mimic  world  of  Balzac  is  a  world  of  symbol 
ism,  ruled  by  certain  laws  of  illusion,  and  it 
is  in  his  subtle  handling  of  these  laws  that 
he  excels.  The  money  on  the  stage  is  never 
real ;  and  so  with  all  the  sham  doors  and 


GREEK  GENIUS 

false  situations  in  fiction— there  is  the  magic 
of  ideas  in  all  of  them,  and  we  must  leave 
this  magic  in  its  place.  It  will  not  do  to 
transport  a  bit  of  the  theatre  or  a  scene  out 
of  a  story  into  the  actual  world.  We  must 
not  try  to  match  up  a  piece  of  the  imagina 
tive  world  with  its  analogue  in  real  life. 
The  thing  is  merely  a  symbol,  and  has  no 
analogue.  The  great  creators  produce  in  us 
an  illusion  of  their  omniscience.  The  poet 
is  a  kind  of  god ;  the  novelist  seems  to  know 
the  whole  of  life.  Balzac  appears  to  com 
prehend  politics,  art,  finance,  bric-a-brac,  the 
wine  trade,  peasant  life,  student  life,  pro 
vincial  life,  the  Church,— everything.  He 
creates  in  us  a  most  vivid  belief  that  he  un 
derstands  all  things. 

But  of  course  Balzac  knew  none  of  these 
things  correctly ;  he  merely  knew  their  stage 
uses,  their  imaginative  values,  their  sym 
bolic  effectivenesses.  It  will  not  do  for  us 
to  catechise  him  about  the  Catholic  Church, 
or  about  the  Bourbon  Monarchy,  or  about 
universal  suffrage.  Down  to  1845  ne  nad 
never  been  in  a  law  court:  "je  n'avais  ja- 
mais  entendu  plaider."  He  wandered  into 
the  Cour  d'Assises,  and  was  so  interested 
that  he  remained  there  all  day.  This  ro 
mancer  who,  one  might  say,  first  discovered 

0603 


BALZAC 

the  dramatic  value  of  the  law  and  of  law 
suits  in  fiction,  knows  nothing  of  law.  He 
can  improvise  it  as  fast  as  he  needs  it.  Im 
provise  ?  No,  not  quite  that,  but  pick  it  out 
of  a  book,  or  a  friend,  or  the  gutter.  He 
lays  his  hand  on  some  old  leather  rag  of 
reality  and  turns  it  into  a  king's  mantle  in  his 
story-book. 

Balzac's  Pickwickian  expedition  to  Sar 
dinia,  which  in  1838  he  visited  alone  and  in 
secret  for  the  sake  of  discovering  the  silver- 
mines  left  by  the  Romans,  exhibits  more 
kinds  of  ignorance  of  the  world  than  were 
ever  brought  together  before.  His  secretive- 
ness  and  his  cunning,  his  enthusiasm  for 
science,  his  lust  for  gold,  his  fatiguing  jour 
neys,  his  maddening  quarantines, — all  the 
sufferings  of  the  Parisian  Balzac,  who 
found  himself  "dans  tin  desert  rempli  d'in- 
connus  quasi-sauvages," — are  described  in 
letters  which  seem  like  screams  of  pain : 

"J'ai  traverse  une  foret  vierge  penche  sur 
le  cou  de  mon  cheval  sous  peine  de  la  vie; 
car,  pour  la  traverser,  il  fallait  marcher  dans 
un  cours  d'eau,  convert  d'un  berceau  de 
plantes  grimpantes  et  de  branches  qui  m'au- 
raient  eborgne,  casse  les  dents,  emporte  la 
tete.  C'est  des  chenes  verts  gigantesques, 


GREEK  GENIUS 

des  arbres  a  liege,  des  lauriers,  des  bruyeres 
de  trente  pieds  de  hauteur.  Rien  a  manger." 

This  Sardinian  episode  of  Balzac's  life, 
though  it  is  told  in  only  twenty  pages  of 
print,  is  as  remarkable  as  Daudet's  Tartarin 
—which,  by  the  way,  it  vividly  recalls. 

The  passion  for  finance,  which  makes  the 
money-matters  in  his  books  so  real  and  so 
thrilling,  ruined  Balzac  in  real  life.  In  this 
department  he  seems  to  have  transplanted 
his  stage  beliefs  into  the  actual  world,  and 
something  of  the  same  sort  is  true  of  his 
love-affairs.  He  had  an  uncertain  compre 
hension  of  the  woman  he  loved.  This  artist, 
who  knew  women  better  than  any  artist 
since  Euripides  (I  have  heard  young  women 
declare  that  they  generally  shut  all  the  doors 
when  they  sit  down  to  read  Balzac),— this 
master  of  the  soul  of  women  in  fiction,— 
seems  to  have  lived  in  a  region  of  half -com 
prehension  with  regard  to  Madame  Hanska, 
the  woman  he  loved  for  eighteen  years. 

With  the  exception  of  finance  and  of 
Madame  Hanska,  he  had  no  interest  in  the 
actual.  His  art  consumed  him.  It  trans 
lated  all  actualities  into  fiction  so  fast  that 
you  might  say  that  for  him  the  world  had  no 
charms,  no  terrors.  He  simplified  his  life 


BALZAC 

to  a  mere  desk  in  a  cottage,  and  would  have 
been  completely  happy  but  for  the  incursion 
of  his  symbolic  world  of  finance  and  of  his 
symbolic  world  of  love  into  this  cottage. 

Madame  Hanska  was  astonished  that  Bal 
zac,  who  knew  the  criminal  classes  so  well, 
should  often  be  a  prey  to  sharpers.  She 
asks  him  how  it  is  possible  that  he  should  be 
an  innocent.  He  pleads  that  fatigue  and 
distraction  are  the  cause  of  it,  that  Napoleon 
cannot  be  in  all  places  at  once,  and  so  forth. 
But  the  real  reason  he  does  not  suspect,— 
namely,  that  the  thieves'  world  of  fiction  is 
not  the  real  thieves'  world,  and  that  the 
great  creator  of  criminals  in  fiction  does  not 
recognise  a  criminal  in  the  street. 

This  is  as  it  must  be,  and  we  ought  not  to 
be  astonished.  Life  is  so  complex  that  any 
one  aspect  of  it  is  enough  to  occupy  and 
exhaust  the  greatest  intellect.  The  poet,  the 
banker,  the  economist,  the  physicist  has  all 
he  can  master  if  he  knows  the  dialect  of  his 
own  province  of  the  mind. 

The  great  and  insoluble  question  with 
Balzac  is,  of  course,  the  same  as  it  is  with 
Shakespeare  and  with  Dickens,  How  do  the 
characters  get  into  the  poet?  How  do  Fal- 
staff  and  Mrs.  Gamp  come  to  exist?  and  do 
observation  and  study  have  much  to  do  with 


GREEK  GENIUS 

the  matter?  There  are  two  or  three  chance 
sentences  in  Balzac's  letters  which  throw 
more  light  on  the  subject  than  all  that  the 
critics  have  said  from  the  age  of  Aristotle 
downward. 

In  writing  to  Madame  Hanska,  he  says 
that  he  drew  his  women  from  his  imagina 
tion,  and  did  not  copy  them  from  his  ac 
quaintances.  He  says  this  in  answer  to  a 
letter  in  which  she  had  evidently  twitted  him 
for  his  intimate  knowledge  of  women,  and 
called  him  a  lady-killer.  Again,  to  the 
Duchesse  d'Abrantes,  who  had  raised  the 
same  question  in  a  wider  form,  he  describes 
the  spontaneous  play  of  ideas  that  went  on 
in  his  mind,  and  which  made  him  feel  like  a 
bystander,  and  adds : 

"Ce  kaleidoscope-la  vient-il  de  ce  que, 
dans  Tame  de  ceux  qui  pretendent  vouloir 
peindre  toutes  les  affections  et  le  coeur  hu- 
main,  le  hasard  jette  toutes  les  affections 
memes,  afin  qu'ils  puissent,  par  la  force  de 
leur  imagination,  ressentir  ce  qu'ils  peignent  ? 
et  I' observation  ne  ser ait-ell  e  qu'une  sorte  de 
memoir  e  propre  a  aider  cette  mobile  imagi 
nation?  Je  commence  a  le  croire." 

The  italics  are  mine.    Here  is  a  statement  by 


BALZAC 

one  of  the  few  great  geniuses  who  are  com 
petent  to  speak ;  and  he  seems  to  say  that  his 
external  observation  of  men  is  merely  an 
aid  to  his  internal  memory;  that  is,  it  helps 
to  catch  and  docket  the  characters  that  seethe 
within  his  imagination.  Perhaps  this  is  as 
clear  a  statement  as  we  may  ever  expect  to 
receive  upon  the  matter.  The  words  show 
the  extent  to  which  the  external  world  is 
subjected  to  the  internal  in  the  mind  of  an 
artist. 

In  modern  times  it  is  customary  to  talk 
about  the  "message"  of  an  artist,  but  no  one 
has  ever  discovered  what  the  term  means. 
The  mind  of  an  artist  is  normally  a  blank, 
except  where  his  art  fills  it  in,  and  those  who 
create  the  strongest  illusion  of  omniscience 
are  probably  the  most  completely  ignorant 
of  things  not  within  their  craft.  Take  away 
his  ink-pot  or  his  paint-box,  and  the  artist  is 
a  fish  out  of  water.  His  life  is  in  the  hiero 
glyphics  of  his  trade.  This  is  his  message; 
this  is  himself.  The  greater  the  poet,  the 
less  is  he  conscious  of  any  message,  because 
the  less  is  he  aware  of  the  actual  world.  He 
has  transhumanised  everything  he  knows  to 
suit  his  own  temperament.  Small  natures, 
who  live  half  in  the  real  world  and  half  in 


GREEK  GENIUS 

their  own  peculiar  moods,  are  burdened  with 
a  sense  of  message.  I  cannot  find  that  Bal 
zac  had  any  conscious  message.  He  wanted 
fame ;  he  needed  money ;  he  wrote  furiously. 
The  rest  was  consequence.  The  whole  was 
destiny. 

There  are  certain  critics  whose  forte  it  is 
to  complain  that  the  great  masters  did  n't 
really  know  their  own  business.  Critics  of 
this  sort  rule  the  whole  literature  of  paint 
ing,  and  abound  in  all  other  literatures ;  and 
it  is  no  wonder  if  certain  students  have 
fallen  foul  of  Balzac  on  the  ground  that  he 
is  not  sufficiently  literate.  M.  Faguet  says 
that  the  novelist  was  not  a  reader.  But  if 
you  turn  to  Balzac's  letters  you  find  that  the 
artist  had,  after  all,  some  reading.  He  men 
tions  Sterne,  Mirabeau,  La  Fontaine,  Rous 
seau,  de  Stael,  Voltaire,  Richardson,  Juve 
nal,  Rabelais,  Goethe,  Byron,  etc.,  etc.,  with 
the  sort  of  freedom  that  educated  persons 
use;  and  the  range  of  his  allusions  is  wide. 
His  historical  novels  and  his  philosophical 
romances  imply  reading.  He  owned  ten 
thousand  volumes,  and  refused  to  give  up 
his  library  to  his  creditors  on  the  ground  that 
his  books  were  the  tools  of  his  trade.  He 
constantly  asks  his  mother  to  procure  par 
ticular  books  for  him. 

[266] 


BALZAC 

It  is,  indeed,  impossible  for  any  great 
literary  man  not  to  be  bookish.  From 
Dante  and  Petrarch  downward,  all  the  great 
poets  and  writers  have  been  bookish;  they 
have  lived  on  books  as  the  seal  lives  on  fish. 
The  passion  for  reading  is  the  one  quality 
that  great  literary  men  have  in  common  with 
small  literary  men.  The  difference  seems  to 
be  that  books  feed  the  great  ones  and  poison 
the  small  ones. 

Balzac  is  a  great  jongleur  who  draws 
upon  an  inexhaustible  repertory  of  tales, 
and  weaves  many  threads  from  the  past  into 
his  great  tapestries.  His  manner  of  treating 
the  romance  is  the  correct,  traditional  man 
ner,  which  has  survived  from  the  days  of 
Miletus  because  it  is  popular  and  agree 
able.  The  genre  of  romance-writing  per 
mits  and  invites  this  discursive  method ;  and 
persons  who  would  divide  fiction  into  (i) 
narrative,  (2)  discursive,  etc.,  are,  from  an 
academic  point  of  view,  entirely  in  the 
wrong.  It  is  their  own  reading,  not  Balzac's 
reading  that  has  been  narrow.  Balzac  had 
no  esthetique, — that  is,  he  had  no  formula, 
—but  he  had  practices.  He  did  what 
Homer  and  Ovid  and  their  mediaeval  and 
modern  successors  have  always  done. 
Chaucer,  Cervantes,  Scott,  and  Balzac,  with 
C2673 


GREEK  GENIUS 

all  their  discursiveness,  belong  to  the  school 
which  seduces  and  enchants.  The  asides 
and  excursions  in  Balzac  interest  us  as  much 
as  the  story.  And  besides,  they  are  a  part 
of  the  story;  they  are  swirling  portions  of 
the  great  river. 

As  the  "message"  of  the  artist  must  be 
left  in  limbo,  so  the  "philosophy"  of  a  poet 
ought  to  be  liberally  treated.  In  dealing 
with  it  we  must  content  ourselves  with  allu 
sions — pointing  to  the  thought,  but  never 
attempting  to  extract,  define,  or  reproduce 
it.  We  are  all  in  search  of  the  poet's  idea— 
we  who  read  his  books  and  feel  his  power. 
Every  work  of  art  carries  a  philosophy  in 
its  hand.  There  is  a  metaphysic  even  in 
Shakespeare  and  Walter  Scott;  and  there 
is  in  Balzac  a  far  more  approachable  mode 
of  thought  than  in  either  of  these. 

When  Balzac  was  in  his  teens,  he  had 
visions  of  becoming  a  philosopher.  He 
wrote  a  Theorie  de  la  Volonte,  which,  to 
his  lasting  regret,  was  burned  by  an  ignorant 
teacher.  He  mourned  the  loss,  for  he 
thought  that  this  early  work  would  have 
shown  the  world  what  talents  he  had  in  the 
field  of  metaphysics.  Nevertheless,  as  he 
turned  from  philosophy  to  romance,  as  he 
dropped  the  ferule  and  took  up  the  wand,  the 

1:2683 


BALZAC 

Theorie  de  la  Volonte  still  haunted  his 
thought.  There  is  an  ever-present  meta- 
physic  in  Balzac,  a  thing  peculiar  to  his 
mind,  and  unitary;  that  is  to  say,  consistent 
with  itself,  philosophical.  It  is  a  general 
conception  of  life  as  force,  and  of  the  vis 
ible  portions  of  our  being  as  mere  projec 
tions  of  the  far  larger  and  more  important 
invisible  parts.  This  conception  is  what 
gives  brilliancy,  transparency,  enduring 
power  to  his  fiction.  In  the  author's  mind 
the  externals  are  mere  lenses,  reflecting  sur 
faces,  reverberations  which  voice  an  invis 
ible  drama  that  is  conducted  by  the  gods 
above.  The  life  lies  behind  and  beyond. 
The  future  is  always  present,  and  the  past  is 
present;  the  story  is  a  philosophical  ro 
mance. 

This  point  of  view  is  conveyed  by  a  thou 
sand  hints,  and  sometimes  by  discourses,  as 
in  the  Pcau  de  Chagrin,  in  Le  Cousin  Pons 
(the  discourse  on  fortune-telling),  in  the 
Recherche  de  I'Absolu,  etc.,  etc.  The 
thought  itself  can  live  only  in  a  half-light, 
and  Balzac  is  happiest  in  dealing  with  it  by 
asides.  When  he  becomes  dogmatic  and 
heavy, — as,  for  instance,  in  Seraphita  and 
in  Louis  Lambert, — when  he  determines  to 
be  a  philosopher  and  swears  he  will  force 


GREEK  GENIUS 

his  idea  down  the  throat  of  the  world,  he 
becomes  deadly  and  inexpressive.  Good 
Lord,  deliver  us  from  him ! 

But  the  mysticism  of  Balzac,  when  it  ap 
pears  as  a  mere  illumination  due  to  vision— 
like  the  aura  of  the  saints — is  the  divine 
power  in  him,  divinely  working,  divinely 
seeing.  The  introduction  by  him  of  this  ele 
ment — I  should  say  the  perception  by  him  of 
this  element— at  work  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  real  realism,  the  realism  invented  by 
the  father  of  realism,  is  what  gives  its  char 
acter  to  the  Comedie  Humaine. 

In  his  great  tragic  romances  the  track  of 
some  mighty  egoism  is  followed  across  so 
ciety.  Ambition,  avarice,  envy,  misguided 
love,  unbridled  sensuality,  are  so  depicted 
that  we  feel  them  to  be  the  visitations  of 
madness,  foci  of  inscrutable,  compelling 
force,  which  wreck  the  lives  of  many  and 
ravage  the  world  like  a  disease.  Not  since 
Shakespeare's  two  or  three  greatest  trage 
dies  has  there  been  any  human  writing  so 
powerfully  and  completely  tragic  as  these 
books.  They  leave  us  with  a  sense  of  real 
ity  with  which  no  fiction  competes. 

These  great  tragedies  are  merely  monu 
ments  which  stand  out  in  the  city  of  Balzac's 
literature.  They  themselves  differ  greatly 


BALZAC 

from  one  another,  and  cannot  be  reduced  to 
a  formula,  for  each  one  of  them  is  vitalised 
by  a  principle  which  is  peculiar  to  itself. 
The  merits  of  the  lesser  works  are  also  so 
interwoven  with  their  substance  that  criti 
cism  cannot  name  them  exactly.  Life  leaps 
from  the  pages — that  is  all  we  know. 

The  Peau  de  Chagrin  is  a  book  full  of 
longueurs;  but  it  contains  an  unforgettable 
idea,  and  the  story  passes  from  plain  tale 
into  allegory  and  back  again  without  transi 
tion.  The  story  glows  and  throbs  with 
truth,  because  life  also  vibrates  between  the 
actual  and  the  metaphysical.  The  most 
solid  houses  are  constantly  melting  into  mist 
as  we  gaze  on  them.  How  often  do  we  see 
sky  and  sea,  hopes,  dreams,  and  fears,  shine 
through  the  solid  masonry  about  us !  Things 
good  and  bad,  great  and  small,  get  at  us 
through  the  bars  and  bonds  of  time.  In  Bal 
zac  everything  glo\vs;  there  is  a  glamour 
and  a  novelty  about  his  scenes  which  are  like 
the  hopes  of  youth  and  the  foretaste  of  hap 
piness.  Everything  is  thrilling,  rich,  clear, 
certain,  and  inevitable.  The  Arabian  Nights 
are  not  more  satisfying  to  the  romantic  ap 
petite.  You  feel  the  completeness  of  the 
tale ;  you  repose  in  its  fatality  from  the  be 
ginning.  To  what  extent  are  his  stories 


GREEK  GENIUS 

spontaneous,  to  what  extent  arranged?  I 
do  not  know.  But  I  know  that  they  are 
studied  things,  like  good  music ;  they  are  ar 
tificial,  symbolic  things;  they  are  abstrac 
tions  ;  there  is  algebra  concealed  in  them. 

Like  all  powerful  forms  of  art,  these  tales 
are  complex  centres  where  many  and  various 
kinds  of  force  converge  and  are  superposed 
one  upon  the  other.  The  same  tale  often 
has  the  interest  of  a  detective  story,  of  a 
melodrama,  an  allegory,  a  picture  of  man 
ners,  and  of  a  personal  letter  from  Balzac. 
This  multiplicity  of  content  is  what  makes  a 
writer  great,  for  it  is  a  quality  which  we  do 
not  outgrow.  If  we  tire  of  the  theme,  we 
enjoy  the  construction.  At  twenty  we  love 
the  villain,  at  forty  the  epilogue.  This  com 
plexity  of  idea  is  what  gives  to  any  work 
the  quality  of  pure  intellect. 

To  take  an  example:  the  Russian  novels 
are  much  simpler  in  content  than  Balzac's 
novels.  They  are  exhaustible:  we  tire  of 
them.  They  are  written  by  men  whose 
minds  have  not  been  subdued  by  the  classic 
traditions  of  Western  Europe ;  by  men  who 
are  not  hooped  in  and  controlled  by  conven 
tional  aesthetic  standards.  The  Russian 
novels  do  not  contain  a  tincture  of  the  Ara 
bian  Nights,  and  of  Boccaccio,  and  of 


BALZAC 

Clarissa  Harlowe,  as  Balzac  does.  They 
lack  a  hundred  elements  which  go  to  make 
up  fiction.  The  art  that  soothes  us,  makes 
us  happy,  gives  us  the  truth,  is  the  art  that 
conveys  an  abstraction  and  leaves  no  prob 
lem  behind. 

Mere  pictures  of  manners  and  of  politics, 
mere  moralities  and  economic  tales,  mere 
social  studies,  no  matter  how  true  or  how 
deserving,  are  parts  of  the  raw  material  of 
life.  They  belong  to  the  crude  ore  which 
we  all  have  to  deal  with  in  our  own  work 
shops.  I  am  not  willing  to  give  my  painful 
attention  to  reading  a  novel  if  the  book  is 
only  a  restatement  of  life's  injustices  and 
incongruities,  a  mere  attack  on  the  incom 
prehensibility  of  the  universe.  I  must  have 
something  that  gives  me  a  clue  or  a  sense  of 
solution,  something  that  confirms  the  faith 
in  me  which  the  real  world  so  constantly 
baffles.  This  is  what  great  works  of  art  do 
for  us. 

It  is  a  wonderful  proof  of  the  ultimate 
identity  of  comedy  and  tragedy  that  Balzac, 
whom  most  people  would  name  as  the  great 
est  modern  tragedian,  was  in  his  person  the 
very  ideal  of  a  comic  poet.  He  was  the  god 
Pan  in  the  flesh.  His  lips  curved,  his  brow 
bulged,  his  eyes  gleamed,  his  fingers  played 


GREEK  GENIUS 

the  pipe.  There  were  reeds  in  his  hair;  his 
garments  were  mere  drapery;  his  good  hu 
mour  and  natural  honour,  and  his  in 
exhaustible  fountains  of  life,  courage, 
benevolence,  deluged  those  who  saw  him, 
and  live  yet  in  the  pictures  of  him  and  in  his 
letters,  which  add  the  last  and  greatest  fig 
ure  to  Balzac's  gallery, — to  wit,  the  figure 
of  Balzac  himself. 

The  externals  of  this  deity  are  as  simple 
as  those  of  some  demigod  to  whom  the 
decorative  arts  have  assigned  but  one  sym 
bol.  Balzac's  symbol  is  a  dressing-gown. 
He  has  no  home,  family,  wife,  fortune,  cir 
cle,  career,  or  periods  of  life.  He  got  into 
debt  in  his  early  youth,  and  remained  in  debt. 
He  changed  his  lodgings,  but  never  his 
mind.  His  temperament  added  to  his  debt 
faster  than  his  talent  could  diminish  it ;  and 
so  it  went— more  debt,  more  fiction— till  the 
end. 

Balzac  was  born  in  Tours  in  1799,  and  at 
twelve  years  of  age  moved  to  Paris  with  his 
family.  He  died  in  1850,  having  written 
about  a  hundred  books,  large  and  small.  He 
was  a  short,  stout  man  with  a  beaming  face 
and  nature, — beaming,  that  is,  except  when 
he  was  in  the  glooms  from  exhaustion  and 


BALZAC 

overwork.  His  manner  of  life  and  his 
method  of  composition  are  deeply  related  to 
his  art.  They  were  the  habits  of  the  bril 
liant  crammer,  who  sits  up  all  night  with  a 
wet  towel  round  his  head,  and  does  the  work 
of  a  half-year  in  twelve  hours.  Only  with 
Balzac  the  work  began  at  midnight  and 
lasted  till  five  o'clock  on  the  following  after 
noon;  and  the  regime  was  kept  up  for  sev 
eral  months  at  a  time.  As  for  food,  he  ate 
when  he  pleased,  except  that  he  seems  to 
have  dined  regularly  and  dined  early.  This 
way  of  life  did  not  result  in  killing  him  till 
he  was  fifty-one,  because,  in  the  first  place, 
he  had  the  strongest  constitution  imaginable, 
and  secondly,  because  he  had  no  dissipa 
tions,  used  no  drugs  or  alcohol,  his  only 
vice  being  black  coffee,  which  occasionally 
he  would  forswear.  It  must  be  observed, 
also,  as  a  thing  of  the  very  greatest  impor 
tance,  that  his  sleeping  hours  were  the  early 
hours  of  the  night — from  seven  to  twelve. 

In  1838,  after  this  outrageous  regime  had 
been  in  operation  for  ten  or  twelve  years,  he 
writes : 

"Comme  j'avais  ete  vingt-cinq  jours  sans 
dormir,  je  suis,  depuis  un  mois,  occupe  a 
dormir  quinze  on  seize  heures  par  jour  et  a 

075  H 


GREEK  GENIUS 

ne  rien  faire  pendant  les  huit  heures  de 
vieille;  je  me  refais  de  la  cervelle  pour  la 
depenser  a  mesure  qu'elle  vient." 

This  power  of  sleep  is  proof  that  Balzac's 
nature  was  still  intact. 

The  way  of  life,  however,  made  a  recluse 
of  him.  He  had  the  concentration,  the  men 
tal  isolation  of  an  astronomer.  His  original 
qualities, — his  ingenuousness,  his  unworld- 
liness,  were  no  doubt  intensified  by  his  seclu 
sion.  As  a  boy  he  shut 'himself  up  to  work 
off  a  debt,  and  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  he 
walked  out  of  his  study  into  his  grave,  and 
had  lost  none  of  his  ideals. 

The  privacy  of  his  life  had,  I  believe,  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  this  retention  of  his 
youth,  both  in  a  good  sense  and  a  bad  one. 
He  was  an  ingenuous,  high-strung  creature. 
The  following  passage  is  not  a  page  from 
Goethe's  Werther,  nor  a  page  out  of  the 
diary  of  an  ingenue  in  one  of  George  Sand's 
romances.  It  is  part  of  a  letter  written  by 
Balzac,  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  to  Madame 
Hanska,  whom  he  had  known  in  Vienna 
some  years  before.  He  writes  from  Milan : 

"Je  suis  alle  a  la  poste  pour  savoir  si 
quelqu'un  aurait  eu  1'idee  de  m'ecrire  poste 

076;] 


BALZAC 

restante.  J'ai  trouve  une  lettre  de  la  com- 
tesse  Thiirhein,  qui  vous  aimait  tant  et  que 
vous  aimiez  aussi,  et  ou  votre  nom  etait  pro- 
nonce  au  milieu  d'une  phrase  melancolique 
qui  m'a  emu  profondement;  .  .  .  Je  me 
suis  assis  sur  un  bane  et  suis  reste  pres  d'une 
heure  les  yeux  attaches  sur  le  Duomo,  fas 
cine  par  tout  ce  que  cette  lettre  rappelait.  Et 
tous  les  incidents  de  mon  sejour  a  Vienne 
ont  passe  devant  moi  dans  toute  leur  verite 
naive,  dans  toute  leur  candeur  de  marbre. 
Ah !  que  ne  doit-on  pas,  je  ne  dis  pas  a 
celle  qui  nous  cause  de  si  douces  et  pures 
souvenances,  mais  au  fragile  papier  qui  les 
reveille." 

This  passage  may  be  taken  as  the  keystone 
in  the  long  arch  of  his  passion  for  her,  which 
began  in  1833  and  ended  only  with  his  life. 

This  retirement  and  perpetual  contempla 
tion  kept  the  bloom  on  his  feelings,  yet  it 
kept  him  also  in  prey  to  his  moods.  To 
wards  the  end  of  his  life  he  became  more 
and  more  excessive  in  his  exaltations  and  in 
his  depressions.  The  insanity  of  the  lover, 
which  is  pleasing  in  the  boy  of  nineteen, 
gives  us  concern  in  the  man  of  fifty.  Balzac 
thinks  of  his  mistress  every  hour ;  he  walks 


GREEK  GENIUS 

into  churches  and  kneels  before  altars  and 
prays  for  her ;  she  is  his  ever-present  deity. 

In  1846  he  receives  a  cruel  letter.  Its  early 
pages  cause  him  so  much  anguish  that,  drop 
ping  it  unfinished,  he  rushes  up  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli  in  his  summer  shoes,  though  the  snow 
is  ankle-deep.  His  aspect  alarms  what 
friends  he  meets.  He  plods  the  boulevards 
all  day,  and,  returning  exhausted  to  his 
home  in  Passy  at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  he 
flings  himself  into  bed.  But  sleep  deserts 
his  eyelids.  He  therefore  rises,  lights  his 
fire  as  well  as  the  fifty  candles  of  his  bronze 
chandelier,  and  proceeds  to  finish  the  letter, 
whose  balmy  final  passages  somewhat  as 
suage  the  sufferings  which  its  earlier  pages 
have  caused. 

A  man  of  this  kind  is  a  good  lover  but  a 
bad  companion,  and  we  must  regard  it  as 
fortunate  that  circumstances  compelled  him 
to  live  apart  from  the  object  of  his  adora 
tion,  except  for  the  many  journeys  taken 
together  and  the  many  visits  which  the  lov 
ers  paid  to  each  other  in  Poland  and  in 
France.  One  feels  convinced  that  there  was 
less  suffering  in  Balzac's  life  than  if  his 
marriage  with  Madame  Hanska  had  taken 
place  at  an  earlier  date. 

The    negative    portrait    of    this    woman 

078:1 


BALZAC 

which  comes  to  us  out  of  Balzac's  letters  to 
her  is  not  reassuring.  We  get  an  impression 
that  she  was  at  times  bored  by  his  assidui 
ties,  that  she  sometimes  played  upon  his  feel 
ings,  that  she  made  use  of  him  to  collect 
autographs,  that  she  was  somehow  a  vulgar- 
minded  person.  We  must  not  forget,  how 
ever,  that  she  completely  satisfied  Balzac's 
romanticism  and  perfected  his  life,  and  that 
she  finally  did,  in  obedience  to  Russian  law, 
give  up  her  fortune  in  order  to  marry  him. 
Her  husband  died  in  1841 :  she  married  Bal 
zac  in  1850. 

A  disillusionment  of  some  sort  seems  to 
have  fallen  upon  the  lovers  soon  after  their 
marriage;  both  of  them  were  no  longer 
young,  and  both  were  very  ill.  Certainly 
their  wedding  journey  from  Poland  to  Paris 
is  one  of  the  saddest  in  history. 

I  should  be  content  if  not  quite  so  many 
of  Balzac's  letters  to  Madame  Hanska  had 
survived.  A  liaison  carried  on  by  corre 
spondence,  which  continues  for  eighteen 
years,  becomes  an  integral  part  of  two  lives. 
The  people  become  necessary  to  each  other, 
and  this  fact  is  more  important  than  any 
thing  which  they  say  in  their  letters.  The 
letters  are  the  ceaseless  drumming  of  the 
mill-wheels  of  life. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

Your  complete  literary  man  writes  all  the 
time.  It  wakes  him  in  the  morning  to  write, 
it  exercises  him  to  write,  it  rests  him  to 
write.  Writing  is  to  him  a  visit  from  a 
friend,  a  cup  of  tea,  a  game  of  cards,  a  walk 
in  the  country,  a  warm  bath,  an  after-dinner 
nap,  a  hot  Scotch  before  bed,  and  the  sleep 
that  follows  it.  Your  complete  literary  chap 
is  a  writing  animal;  and  when  he  dies  he 
leaves  a  cocoon  as  large  as  a  haystack,  in 
which  every  breath  he  has  drawn  is  recorded 
in  writing.  We  must  place  these  cocoons  in 
our  cabinet,  but  we  need  not  label  them  with 
very  lofty  names,  even  though  some  great 
butterflies  have  flown  out  of  them.  There 
are  men  and  women,  great  and  small,  who 
have  left  a  wilderness  of  memorials  behind 
them.  We  feel  that  we  should  know  them 
better  if  we  did  not  know  so  much  about 
them.  The  Carlyles  were  distinguished  fig 
ures  before  their  memoirs  were  published. 
Balzac's  letters  to  Madame  Hanska  belong 
to  this  crushing  class,  which  here  encloses, 
as  it  often  does,  an  enormous  interest.  The 
interest  in  this  case  comes  from  discovering 
that  all  we  had  guessed  about  Balzac  in  read 
ing  the  novels  is  proved  to  be  true  by  the 
letters. 

There  is  no  night  side  to  Balzac's  life  or 


BALZAC 

nature — a  thing  which  the  world  has  been 
slow  to  believe.  Most  great  sentimentalists, 
like  Goethe,  Byron,  de  Musset,  have  at  one 
time  or  another  been  dissipated  men,  a  thing 
which  shows  in  their  philosophy  and  in  their 
artistic  work.  Balzac  seems  to  have  had  no 
period  of  dissipation.  I  do  not  mean  that 
he  was  irreproachably  virtuous,  but  that  he 
retained  throughout  life  an  innocence  of 
feeling  which  is  foreign  to  Gallic  sentiment. 
At  the  risk  of  making  the  reader  laugh,  I 
must  give  a  portion  of  an  indignant  letter 
which  Balzac  writes  in  1832  to  one  of  his 
oldest  friends,  Madame  Carraud,  who  had 
suggested  to  him  a  worldly  marriage : 

"Comme  vous  me  jugez  mal  en  croyant 
que  je  ne  saurais  pas  m'abimer  dans  1'affec- 
tion  que  vous  me  depeignez  virile  et  en  me 
condamnant  a  la  femme  que  vous  supposez 
etre  ici,  que  vous  peignez  a  votre  gre !  Vous 
avez  ete  injuste  dans  bien  des  appreciations. 
Moi,  vendu  a  un  parti  pour  une  femme !  un 
homme  chaste  pendant  un  an!  .  .  .  Vous 
n'y  songez  pas :  une  ame  qui  ne  congoit  pas 
la  prostitution!  qui  regarde  comme  enta- 
chant  tout  plaisir  qui  ne  derive  pas  et  ne 
retourne  pas  a  Tame!  Oh!  vous  me  devez 
des  reparations.  Je  n'ai  pas  eu  les  pensees 


GREEK  GENIUS 

que  vous  me  pretez.  J'ai  horreur  de  tout  ce 
qui  est  seduction,  parce  que  c'est  quelque 
chose  d'etranger  au  sentiment  vrai,  pur." 

This  foreign,  Teutonic  sentimentality  about 
the  domestic  relations  has  an  influence  in 
separating  Balzac  from  France.  French 
men,  as  a  rule,  do  not  like  it,  they  do  not 
respond  to  it:  it  lacks  pungency  (except 
when  exaggerated  into  candy  a  I'usage  des 
jeunes  filles).  This  sentimentality  goes 
with  the  rest  of  Balzac's  wallowing,  exag 
gerated  nature.  Good  form  frowns  upon  so 
much  personal  feeling,  so  much  unrestrained 
emotion,  as  is  everywhere  prevalent  in  Bal 
zac. 

There  is  a  note  all  through  his  novels 
which  rarely  sounds  in  French  literature — a 
note  of  piety,  purity,  and  belief  in  innocence. 
Imitations  of  this  note  abound.  The  imita 
tion  is  the  aria  which  almost  every  French 
author,  from  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre  (in 
deed,  from  the  author  of  Aucassin  et  Nico- 
lette)  down  to  Zola  and  Anatole  France, 
feels  bound  to  play  on  some  magic  flute, 
which  each  of  them  borrows  for  a  moment 
from  a  bystander.  But  alas !  they  generally 
force  the  note,  for  lack  of  familiarity  with 
the  delicate  instrument.  How  different  are 

1:2823 


BALZAC 

the  young  girls  of  Balzac  from  the  ingenues 
of  Alfred  de  Musset!  There  is  a  warmth 
and  a  calm  in  them,  a  good  sense,  a  weight, 
and  a  glowing  unconsciousness  which  is 
more  Dutch  than  French,  and  which  the 
French  resent.  To  the  French  temperament 
all  this  side  of  Balzac's  art  seems  a  little  flat, 
a  little  disgusting. 

And  yet  this  power  of  depicting  youth  and 
goodness  is  the  result  of  immense  force, 
natural  goodness  and  intellect.  Such  a  pic 
ture  as  Balzac  draws  of  the  early  life  of 
Josephine  Claes  in  the  Recherche  de  I'Absolu 
can  be  drawn  only  by  a  man  whose  soul  lives 
in  the  love  of  innocence.  Balzac  has  the 
feelings  of  youth  and  the  clairvoyance  of 
later  life.  In  his  pictures  of  the  poor  and 
the  unfortunate  there  is  the  same  depth  of 
feeling.  When  we  reflect  that  this  is  the 
author  who  is  chiefly  remembered  as  the 
creator  of  bad  characters,  we  get  an  impres 
sion  of  the  scope  of  his  talents. 

Balzac's  first  grand  passion  was  for  Ma 
dame  de  Berny,  a  woman  much  older  than 
himself,  who  had  had  eight  children,  and 
whom  many  people  think  was  the  best  friend 
he  ever  had.  Her  death  took  place  some 
time  after  his  affair  with  Madame  Hanska 
had  begun,  yet  it  seems  to  have  smitten  him 
r.2833 


GREEK  GENIUS 

with  the  sort  of  sharp  grief  that  a  child  feels 
on  learning  of  the  death  of  its  mother. 

Both  the  novels  and  the  letters  show  us  in 
Balzac  a  man  who  is  sentimentally  constant, 
romantically  domestic.  His  ambition  and 
his  sense  of  honour  are  tinged  with  romance. 
He  refused  money  from  his  friends  at  the 
time  he  needed  it  most.  He  was  determined 
to  triumph  by  himself.  He  would  not  cede 
the  manuscript  of  one  of  his  novels  to  Prince 
Metternich,  though  the  request  for  it  was 
made  with  delicacy,  because  he  conceived 
that  a  manuscript  was  a  sacred  personal 
thing  which  should  be  given  only  to  a  friend 
or  a  lover. 

His  letters  are  the  most  affectionate  let 
ters  in  existence,— always  to  a  small  circle 
of  friends  and  family,— ever  the  same  circle. 
I  give  a  short  paragraph  which  summarises 
a  whole  sheaf  of  these  letters : 

"Va!  si  Dieu  me  prete  vie,  j'aurai  une 
belle  place  et  nous  serons  tous  heureux-, 
rions  done  encore,  ma  bonne  soeur,  la  maison 
Balzac  triomphera!  Crie-le  bien  fort  avec 
moi  pour  que  la  Fortune  nous  entende,  et, 
pour  Dieu !  encore  une  f ois  ne  te  tourmente 
pas!" 

£284] 


BALZAC 

This  cheerful  courage  is  the  prevailing  mood 
of  his  temperament.  He  became  a  notabil 
ity  in  1827  with  the  Chouans,  and  remained 
a  star  in  Paris,  especially  to  all  foreigners 
there;  but  these  things  meant  little  to  him. 
He  refused  to  wait  over  a  week  in  Berlin, 
where  the  court  society  was  ready  to  fete 
him.  He  was  bored  by  the  heartlessness  of 
drawing-room  life,  as  appears  so  clearly  in 
his  books.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was 
neither  a  man's  man  nor  a  sport.  His  club 
friends  were  agreeable  but  not  necessary  to 
him;  and  we  must  remember  also  that  the 
peculiar  divisions  of  his  day  and  night  made 
social  life  impossible,  though  they  worked 
in  admirably  with  his  habits  of  hiding  from 
debt. 

As  for  those  debts  of  which  we  hear  so 
much,  they  resulted  from  the  hopefulness  of 
his  temperament  and  from  his  weakness  in 
finance.  This  kind  of  man  is  ever  being 
tempted  to  shake  off  debt  through  specula 
tion.  He  sees  gold-mines  everywhere.  I 
give  the  following  as  a  sample  of  Balzac's 
hopefulness.  He  has  purchased  a  small 
pied-a-terre  at  Ville  d'Avray.  It  was  called 
Les  Jardies. 

c  285:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

"Aussi,  grace  a  cette  circonstance,  les 
Jardies  ne  seront  jamais  une  folie,  et  leur 
prix  un  jour  sera  double.  J'ai  la  valeur  d'un 
arpent,  termine  au  midi  par  une  terrasse  de 
cent  cinquante  pieds  et  entoure  de  murs.  II 
n'y  a  encore  rien  de  plante;  mais,  cet  au- 
tomne,  je  compte  faire  de  ce  petit  coin  de 
terre  un  fiden  de  plantes,  de  senteurs  et  d'ar- 
bustes.  A  Paris  et  aux  environs,  on  obtient 
tout  ce  qu'on  veut  en  ce  genre,  pourvu  qu'on 
ait  de  quoi  le  payer.  J'aurai  des  magnolias 
de  vingt  ans,  des  tilleuls  de  seize  ans,  de 
grands  peupliers,  de  grands  bouleaux  rap- 
portes  avec  leurs  mottes,  du  chasselas  venu 
dans  des  paniers  pour  etre  recolte  dans  Tan- 
nee.  Oh!  cette  civilisation  est  admirable! 
veritablement,  si  la  paix  et  la  prosperite  pro 
gressive  de  ce  regne  continuent  sous  les 
regnes  suivants,  on  ne  saurait  prevoir  a  quel 
degre  de  bien-etre  et  de  beatitude  materielle 
atteindra  ce  bienheureux  pays,  surtout  si  les 
circonstances  n'entravent  pas  la  marche  de 
la  nature,  qui  1'a  traite  avec  une  si  maternelle 
predilection.  Aujourd'hui,  mon  terrain  est 
nu  comme  la  main ;  au  mois  de  mai  prochain, 
ce  sera  surprenant." 

The  sympathetic  reader  will  have  foreseen 
and  forewept  the  sequel.     Within  a  month 

1:2863 


BALZAC 

the  garden  walls  at  Les  Jardies  fell  down 
because  they  had  been  built  without  founda 
tions  ;  and  within  two  years  the  property 
was  sold  and  became  to  Balzac  a  memory  of 
pain.  He  begs  even  his  beloved  Madame 
Hanska  never  to  refer  to  it. 

The  love  of  luxury  and  the  passion  for 
bric-a-brac,  which  we  all  connect  with  Bal 
zac,  were  peculiar,  imaginative  passions. 
Bric-a-brac  fed  his  mind.  It  was  the  ro 
mance  of  history  to  him,  and  meant  to  him 
the  social  life  of  past  ages,  the  essence  of 
romantic  association.  Cathedrals  and  ruined 
castles  spoke  to  him  not  more  powerfully 
than  bureaux,  pictures,  bits  of  carving,  and 
Italian  stuffs.  His  forte,  his  special  talent, 
one  of  his  great  sources  of  power,  lay  in  his 
understanding  of  the  trappings  of  life.  In 
lodging  and  furnishing  his  characters  he 
makes  their  bedsteads  and  clothes,  their  cur 
tains,  carpets,  and  wall-papers,  speak  as 
eloquently  as  their  lips.  The  meaning  of 
furniture  was  one  of  his  discoveries;  he 
draws  orchestral  voices  out  of  it.  What 
wonder,  then,  that  such  a  man  should  value 
those  magnificent  orchestrations  of  the  great 
costumed  ages  of  the  past? 

But  Balzac  had  no  taste  for  luxury.  The 
few  objects  with  which  he  fed  his  fancy 

087:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

were,  till  the  close  of  his  life,  like  the  ances 
tral  bibelots  of  the  mandarin— things  to  be 
worshipped  while  he  was  living  in  small 
apartments  and  having  in  a  cook  twice  a 
week  to  boil  some  beef,  which  he  ate  cold  at 
every  meal  till  her  next  visit.  He  did,  it  is 
true,  commit  the  folly  of  buying  and  fur 
nishing  a  house  to  receive  Madame  Hanska, 
but  this  was  a  sentimental  extravagance,  a 
mistake,  a  grotesque,  imaginative  folly, 
rather  than  an  act  of  luxury.  He  seems 
really  to  have  had  no  taste  for  luxury,  except 
as  a  sort  of  revel.  He  enjoyed  a  coloured 
dressing-gown  of  an  Asiatic  cut,  which  was 
given  him  in  Russia,  and  walked  up  and 
down  in  it  with  the  glee  of  a  child. 

These  things  show  the  eccentricities  of  a 
man  of  genius,  but  show  no  taste  for  luxury. 
In  his  books  there  is  an  Oriental  delight  in 
excess,  there  are  descriptions  of  feasts  in 
which  waste  and  delirious  super  flux  of  sen 
sation  disgust  us  with  pleasure.  There  is 
extravagance  here,  bad  taste,  perhaps;  but 
do  not  call  this  luxury.  The  luxurious  man 
spends  twenty  francs  on  his  dinner,  or  buys 
a  handsome  waistcoat.  Balzac  has  not  two 
coats  to  his  back,  but  writes  furiously  in  a 
monk's  robe. 

His  burly  image  is  engraved  upon  our 

n  288:1 


BALZAC 

imaginations.  Balzac  the  solitary,  detached, 
prolific,  indomitable  creator  has  become  one 
of  those  presiding  geniuses  whose  busts 
crown  the  library  of  the  mind.  Volition  has 
little  to  do  with  our  acceptance  of  these 
worthies.  Their  names  have  significance 
for  all  men,  because  all  men— even  those 
who  know  nothing  of  them  beyond  the  name 
—have  been  reached  and  influenced  by  them. 


089:1 


IV 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

'II  faut  avoir  ni  foyer  ni  patrie  pour  rester  d  Paris.' 

— BALZAC. 


THE  WOMEN 

I  BEGIN  with  the  women,  because  I  am 
writing  this  essay  in  the  hope  of  saving  a 
favourite  niece,  who  thinks  of  making  a 
plunge  into  the  vortex  of  Paris.  Her  im 
pulse  seems  to  be  due  to  an  illusion  that  she 
has  artistic  talents. 

The  clever  woman  who  is  born  in  Amer 
ica  and  craves  excitement  without  having 
the  vigour  to  be  emotional,  finds  herself  in 
Paris  as  easily  as  the  young  silk-worm,  on 
emerging  from  the  egg,  finds  himself  sitting 
on  a  mulberry  leaf  and  prepared  to  begin  his 
breakfast.  The  worm  has  bitten  his  way 
through  the  leaf  and  sits  on  top. 

The  novelists  have  given  us  pictures  of 
the  climbing  American  girl — pictures  perhaps 
too  dark,  yet  true  in  the  main.  They  show 
that  by  the  mere  instinct  of  climbing,  or  the 
mere  passion  for  excitement,  a  certain  type 
of  American  woman  finds  herself  in  Paris. 
These  novels  often  come  from  the  hands  of 

1:293:1 


GREEK  GENIUS 

the  women  themselves,  and  show  a  great 
mastery  over  one  side  of  the  subject. 
They  depict  with  unchristian  gusto  the 
moral  degeneration  of  the  characters.  They 
seem  to  be  punishing  the  children  of  their 
own  imaginations,  as  if  the  creatures 
were  their  personal  enemies.  The  general 
tendency  of  social  fiction  has  of  late  years 
been  towards  this  sort  of  cruelty,  and 
enough  has  never  been  said  in  extenuation 
of  the  faults  of  the  American  heroines,  or 
indeed  in  explanation  of  the  whole  phenom 
enon  of  those  wingless  women  who  sit 
crunching  mulberry  leaves  in  Paris.  They 
are  maids  who  have  been  starved  at  home; 
they  have  been  bored,  they  have  been  left 
unsatisfied  by  the  social  amenities  of  Amer 
ica.  And  from  infancy  they  have  struggled 
and  fought,  and  sought,  and  tasted,  and 
pushed  blindly  up  until,  at  last,  they  have 
reached  Colombin's  cakes,  Louis  XV  decora 
tions,  the  titillation  of  refined  conversation; 
in  short,  tous  les  agrements  de  la  vie.  Here 
in  Paris  is  the  elegance  which  they  longed 
for  in  their  cradles— chairs  that  rest  them, 
sensibility  that  understands  them,  a  new  and 
not  too  great  excitement  for  each  hour  of 
the  day :  the  trees  in  the  spring,  the  hats  in 
the  shop  windows,  the  latest  book,  the  latest 

£294  3 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

genteel  gentleman  with  something  to  say 
that  is  full  of  interest  (he  has  seen  a  balloon, 
he  knows  the  Swedish  ambassador,  he  is  a 
complete  knight  and  a  delightful,  educated, 
romantic  European). 

There  is  something  that  Paris  gives  to  the 
American  woman  whose  domesticity  is  un 
satisfactory  which  nothing  in  heaven  or 
earth  can  replace — not  religion,  not  love, 
not  ambition,  not  care  for  the  children  of 
her  womb,  not  the  memory  of  scenes  of  her 
childhood,  not  old  friends :  nothing  but  the 
feeling  of  beautiful  Paris  goes  quite  to  the 
right  spot  in  this  American  female. 

Of  course  there  are  differences  in  quality 
and  in  the  refinement  of  taste  among  these 
enraptured  children  of  Eve*  The  coarse- 
minded  and  uneducated  find  the  pang  of  the 
poison  in  lace  and  diamonds ;  the  refined  and 
educated  find  it  in  the  phrases  and  nuances 
of  the  drawing-room  life.  It  is  a  fact,  how 
ever,  that  a  specific  psychological  relation 
exists  between  these  women  and  this  city. 
This  is  what  makes  the  whole  matter  a  fair 
subject  for  examination  and  analysis,  for 
prayer  and  meditation,  for  uplift  and  re 
form,  for  record  and  historic  commemora 
tion. 

Surely  mankind  may  draw  some  lesson 


GREEK  GENIUS 

from  a  devout  study  of  these  acknowledged 
mysteries.  The  great  thing  would  be  to 
find  out  what  happens  to  these  pleasure-seek 
ing  females  at  the  turning-point;  that  is  to 
say,  at  the  very  moment  when  they  reach 
Paris.  They  must,  of  course,  do  something 
different  from  what  they  did  before  reach 
ing  Paris,  for  Paris  is  the  top ;  once  Paris  is 
reached,  there  is  nowhere  to  go  but  down. 
This  must  cause  some  sort  of  convulsion  in 
their  silken  natures.  I  assume,  of  course, 
that  each  one  has  got  to  the  top  of  her  own 
particular  Paris,  whether  it  be  in  a  restau 
rant  or  in  French  salons.  What  happens 
when  the  worm  reaches  her  limit  and  further 
climbing  is  positively  impossible  ?  Does  she 
go  round  and  round  ?  Does  she  get  thinner 
or  fatter  ?  Does  she  go  into  a  doze  and  spin  ? 
My  belief  is  that  when  she  strikes  her  limit 
she  begins  to  die.  Thereafter  the  refine 
ments  become  a  habit,  their  pleasure-giving 
power  of  course  diminishes.  She  is  now  a 
complete  product  of  the  American  colony. 
Desiccation  and  contraction  gradually  re 
duce  her  to  the  paper-doll  condition  which  is 
familiar  to  us  all. 

Another  interesting  study  would  be  to  de 
termine  whether  a  woman  has  ever  been 
saved  from  the  fate  of  Paris.  Has  a  lover 

096:1 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

or  a  son  ever  plunged  through  the  fire  and 
brought  one  back  alive,  set  her  by  an  Amer 
ican  fireside,  interested  her  in  her  children's 
fate,  warmed  her  back  to  such  a  point  of 
vigour  that  the  coarse  blasts  of  American 
life  could  blow  upon  her  soul  and  feed  her 
within  ?  The  novelists  have  never  imagined 
such  a  rescue,  and  the  thing  is  probably  very 
rare. 

Still  another  point  to  be  determined  would 
be  whether  this  Paris  disease  is  congenital 
(which  I  rather  believe),  or  depends  upon 
circumstances.  Given  the  American  girl 
with  such  and  such  a  percentage  of  passion, 
so  much  brains,  so  much  education,  so  much 
money:  does  not  the  rest  follow  inevitably, 
just  as  the  tadpole  grows  into  a  frog  and  not 
into  a  lion  ?  And  might  not  some  extremely 
great  doctor  in  North  Adams,  Massachu 
setts,  as  he  examines  a  new-born  female  in 
fant  and  holds  the  little  worm  to  the  light, 
wrinkle  his  brow,  think  deeply,  take  off  his 
glasses,  and  say  impressively  the  single 
word,  "Paris"? 

There  is  an  innocence  about  these  fellow- 
countrywomen  of  ours  to  whom  this  essay 
is  dedicated,  somewhat  like  the  innocence  of 
a  man  who  has  a  paper  attached  to  his  coat- 
tail  without  being  aware  of  it,  or  the  inno- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

cence  of  the  drunkard,  or  the  innocence  of 
the  self-reliant  strong  man  who  cannot  be 
fooled,  and  whom  his  wife  fools  and  man 
ages  till  the  audience  which  ought  to  be 
amused  is  tempted  to  feel  pity.  They  hang 
like  leeches  on  French  civilisation,  so  visible 
are  they,  so  detached,  so  peculiar,  so  much 
a  class  by  themselves,  so  eccentric,  so  exotic, 
so  artificial.  And  yet  they  are  of  all  people 
in  the  world  the  most  convinced  that  their 
feet  are  on  solid  ground,  that  they  under 
stand  life,  that  they  know  the  meaning  of 
nationality,  that  they  hold  the  secrets  of  the 
intellect.  Every  breath  of  breeze  that  fans 
them  thinner  and  dries  them  harder  brings 
to  them  a  new  sensation  of  robustness  and 
succulence.  Every  light  that  makes  them 
look  like  caricatures  makes  them  feel  like 
well-grounded  and  central  personalities. 

The  change  that  comes  over  them  when 
they  reach  their  zenith  is  unconscious.  Death 
is  unconscious — and  the  decadence  of  the 
spirit  is  always  unconscious.  The  conscious 
part  of  life  is  the  awakening,  the  being  born, 
the  growing,  the  becoming  sensitive  to  wider 
forms  of  truth;  and  exceedingly  unpleasant 
it  generally  is.  One  would  never  go  to  Paris 
to  gain  this  experience,  though  one  would 
willingly  go  there  to  escape  from  it. 

098:1 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

The  Psychology  of  Pleasure  and  Pain: 
this  is  the  great  subject  which  our  study  of 
the  American  woman  in  Paris  leads  up  to. 
What  is  the  injury  that  some  pleasures  do 
to  us?  What  kinds  of  pleasure  are  to  be 
looked  upon  askance?  What  element  in 
pleasure  is  it  that  hurts  the  intellect?  for 
there  exists  some  such  element.  Some  kinds 
of  pleasure  injure  the  intellect  in  the  very 
moment  that  they  seem  to  increase  its  ac 
tivity, — opium,  for  instance,  and  many  other 
drugs,  —  special  stimulations,  which  give  in 
tense  pleasure  in  specific  areas  of  the  con 
sciousness.  The  most  powerful  that  I  can 
think  of  at  the  moment  is  the  excitation  of 
vanity.  I  had  rather  that  a  man  take  a  dose 
of  opium  than  a  dose  of  vanity,  so  far  as  his 
mind  is  concerned.  Vanity  is  a  cutting 
poison  that  destroys  portions  of  a  man's  na 
ture,  as  vitriol  burns  flesh ;  and  vanity  is  one 
of  the  intensest  pleasures  of  which  the  hu 
man  heart  is  capable.  The  same  is  true  of  a 
great  rage.  Indeed,  the  artificial  stimulants 
which  heighten  an  enjoyment  of  life,  such  as 
whiskey  and  tobacco,  and  seem  to  harm  us 
in  ways  that  medicine  reaches  easily,  have 
strong  rivals  in  those  purely  psychological 
excitements  which  damage  us  in  ways  that 
medical  science  cannot  reach.  Perhaps  the 
O99] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

psychological  effect  is  what  does  the  injury 
in  both  cases. 

My  only  point  here  is  that  there  are  inno 
cent-seeming  occupations  which  give  the 
most  thrilling  joy  and  which  do  our  minds 
the  most  desperate  injury,— occupations  that 
kill  the  very  nerves  of  life. 

These  American  women  whom  fate  has 
thrown  into  a  class  by  themselves,  and  whom 
for  half  a  century  we  have  been  able  to 
study  as  they  passed  through  various  stages 
of  moral  decay,  are  plainly  the  victims  of 
some  sort  of  injurious  pleasure.  It  must  be 
pleasure  that  hurts  them,  because  they  them 
selves  confess  that  pleasure  is  their  reason 
for  living  in  Paris ;  pleasure  is  their  aim  in 
life,  pleasure  they  get.  This  pleasure  must 
be  injurious,  for  behold  its  work ! 


ii 

WICKED,   LOVELY   PARIS 

BEFORE  taking  up  the  cases  of  these  ill- 
starred  women,  let  us  say  a  few  words  about 
Paris  itself.  The  whole  world,  not  America 
only,  needs  to  be  inoculated  against  the 
charms  of  that  city.  She  has  ruined  genera 
tions  of  English  people.  She  destroys  the 
[300] 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

Turk,  the  South  American,  the  Russian,  the 
West  Indian,  the  Persian.  There  is  some 
thing  about  her  so  free,  so  agreeable,  so  ca 
pable  of  satisfying  the  humour  of  everyone, 
so  sensible,  so  clever,  so  unspoiled,  so  un 
sophisticated,  that  not  to  have  seen  Paris  is 
not  to  have  lived  at  all.  The  side  streets  are 
as  interesting  as  the  streets  of  little-known, 
remote  Italian  towns.  The  neat  squares  and 
distances  are  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world. 
For  a  franc  you  get  a  touch  of  magic ;  it  may 
be  in  a  spear  of  asparagus,  or  in  a  glimpse  of 
the  roof  of  the  Louvre.  Paris  is  the  Arabian 
Nights,  we  must  admit  it.  We  have  all 
known  the  glamour  and  the  joy. 

The  experience,  however,  wears  thin  for 
most  people.  The  man  with  a  life  and  a 
country  of  his  own  goes  back  to  them  gladly 
after  shorter  and  shorter  visits  to  Paris.  He 
gets  from  Paris,  perhaps,  a  whiff  of  the 
past,  a  note  of  his  own  romantic  early  feel 
ings,  a  breath  of  beauty  old  and  new.  But 
he  is  content  to  leave.  He  flees  it,  in  fact; 
it  palls.  It  sends  him  back  eager  for  all  that 
it  cannot  give  and  has  never  given,  except  to 
Frenchmen. 

Now  the  victims  of  Paris  are  persons 
who  never  get  their  second  wind;  they  are 
keeled  over  again  and  again,  and  as  fast  as 


GREEK  GENIUS 

they  stagger  to  their  feet  they  are  felled 
again  by  some  unseen  power  of  her  charms. 
The  lotus,  the  lotus!  here  doth  it  bloom  in 
deed  !  The  devil  of  the  place  is  that  it  is  so 
easy  to  get  to.  If  it  were  Bagdad,  and  no 
railways  existed,  it  would  seduce  but  a  few 
rich  epicureans  whom  the  world  could  well 
spare ;  but  Paris  takes  up  the  ordinary  Lon 
don  nobleman,  or  the  New  York  millionaire, 
and  it  draws  to  its  heart  of  loadstone  the 
fluttering  non-maternity  of  all  countries. 

For  Americans  Paris  is  merely  the  focal, 
burning  point  of  the  general  attraction  which 
Europe  normally  exerts  upon  their  simple 
natures.  We  in  America  are  children  of 
European  civilisation,  and  Europe  is  our 
home.  Of  course  we  are  delighted  at  find 
ing  everything  so  well  done,  so  old,  so  cheap, 
so  thrilling  as  everything  is.  When  an 
American  goes  to  Europe  he  is  a  rustic  on  a 
visit  to  the  metropolis.  It  would  be  a  dis 
grace  to  us  if  we  were  not  enchanted  with 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  Old  World. 
And  indeed  no  one  can  complain  of  us  in 
this  respect.  The  American  child,  when  he 
sees  Europe,  gets  a  new  impression  of  his 
whole  human  inheritance. 


[302] 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 
in 

THE  DAMNED 

THE  Americans  who  become  so  bewitched 
with  the  Old  World  as  to  reside  in  it  may  be 
rightly  divided  into  three  classes:  Vul 
garians,  Natural  Nobles,  and  the  Inner  Tem 
ple.  The  Vulgarians  are  those  who  frankly 
like  the  good  things  of  the  world,  and  find 
they  get  more  for  their  money  in  Europe 
than  at  home.  The  Natural  Nobles  are 
those  Americans  who  discern  in  themselves 
a  kindred  natal  aristocracy  which  binds  them 
to  Europe.  They  feel  as  if  they  had  been 
changed  at  birth  and  were  really  European 
persons  of  family,  with  coats  of  arms,  good 
accents,  and  men-servants.  They  cannot  re 
member  a  time  when  they  did  not  feel  like 
fine  ladies  and  gentlemen.  They  hold  the 
hands  of  the  real  nobles  very  tightly  when 
they  meet  them,  and  look  in  their  eyes  very 
lovingly.  They  are  really  long-lost  brothers 
to  dukes  and  kings,  to  barons,  and  to  persons 
with  old  names  and  good  manners,  —  indeed, 
to  almost  anyone  who  has  the  run  of  the 
great  houses  or  small  houses  where  the 
sacred  society  of  refined  and  titled  Europe 


GREEK  GENIUS 

congregates.  A  holy  smell,  as  of  incense, 
pervades  the  habitations  of  the  elect  in  Eu 
rope;  a  gentle  radiation  of  influence  causes 
the  Natural  Noble  from  America  to  purr  and 
raise  his  back  and  rub  himself  against  the 
knees  of  the  great,— yea,  even  against  the 
chairs  and  wainscoting. 

The  Inner  Temple  consists  of  the  intellec 
tuals.  These  are  people  who,  in  the  way  of 
books  and  letters,  pictures,  small  talk,  and 
parlour  education,  find  themselves  happy  in 
Europe  and  unhappy  in  America.  They  are 
often  staunch  democrats  in  social  sympathy, 
but  they  melt  before  the  finesse  of  European 
cultivation.  Crudity  is  their  bugbear. 

It  will  be  seen  that  all  of  these  classes  run 
into  one  another,  and  are  really  portions  of 
a  sort  of  spiral  hierarchy,  made  up  of  Amer 
icans  who  are  sensitive  towards  the  refine 
ments  of  (i)  cookery,  (2)  social  manners, 
and  (3)  aesthetic  expression.  The  Vul 
garians  are  the  most  robust  of  the  three 
classes,  for  they  proclaim  the  lowness  of 
their  aims,  and  they  frankly  enjoy  contact 
with  one  another.  They  are  the  tiers  etai, 
the  good  bourgeoisie  of  the  American  Col 
ony.  These  bourgeois  are,  of  course,  de 
spised  by  the  Natural  Nobles,  whose  illusion 
it  is  that  they  themselves  associate  only  with 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

foreigners.  The  Vulgarians  are  especially 
unpleasant  to  them,  because  the  Vulgarians 
are  in  their  way;  the  Vulgarians  are  a  re 
proach  to  them,  a  travesty  of  them.  The 
Vulgarians  make  the  path  of  the  Natural 
Nobles  difficult  in  Europe  in  a  thousand 
ways.  Often  a  Natural  Noble  has  sisters 
and  brothers  who  are  Vulgarians ;  for  Natu 
ral  Nobility  is  a  personal  sanctification,  an 
illumination,  a  grace  rather  than  an  inherit 
ance.  In  this  it  differs  from  the  older 
European  nobility,  which  depends  upon  ex 
ternals.  The  American  noble  is  noble  by 
virtue  of  an  inner  revelation. 

When  I  was  a  child  of  about  seven  I  was 
taken  to  St.  Cloud,  and  on  that  day  the 
Spirit  descended  upon  me  and  I  became  one 
of  the  Elect.  It  was  in  a  great  drawing- 
room,  with  miles  of  polished  parquet  floor 
ing  and  hundreds  of  spindle  chairs,  gilded 
more  completely  than  it  would  be  thought 
possible  to  gild  anything, — gold  chairs  they 
looked  like, — and  many  crystal  chandeliers, 
and  many  tall  windows  and  many  mirrors 
and  cheval-glasses.  I  was  struck  dumb  with 
delight,  and  I  said  to  myself,  "This  is  the 
sort  of  thing  that  I  like !  It  is  native  to  me ; 
I  have  always  been  waiting  for  this!  It 
must  be  that  I  am  a  king !" 


GREEK  GENIUS 

In  this  early  experience  of  my  own  I  seem 
to  see  an  explanation  of  the  American  Col 
ony  in  Europe.  From  the  Vulgarian  to  the 
Inner  Temple,  the  American  Colonist  in 
Europe  feels  that  he  is  really  at  home.  He 
is  in  Abraham's  bosom.  All  the  beginning 
of  his  life  was  an  unpleasant  dream.  All  of 
that  early  New  York,  all  of  that  deadly  Bos 
ton,  ne  compte  plus. 

The  Inner  Temple  has,  of  course,  a  better 
developed  metaphysical  consciousness  than 
the  other  two  classes.  The  Inner  Temple  is 
the  Flower  of  the  Bean— "the  bean-flower's 
boon,"  as  Browning  would  say.  It  is  the 
perfect  gentian  of  a  rootless  flower,  and  it 
blossoms  in  the  boudoir  of  a  Spirit  that  lives 
in  vacuo.  These  intellectuals  have  found 
their  heaven,  too.  Why,  they  are  as  much 
at  home  in  books  and  in  pictures  as  the  worm 
is  in  the  chestnut. 


IV 

ABBES  AND  CUPS  OF  CHOCOLATE 

Now  I  must  make  a  digression,  at  the  risk 
of  fatiguing  the  reader,  and  must  tell  him 
that  there  has  always  existed  in  Europe  a 
whole  society  of  critical  cleverness  which 

C3063 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

runs  behind  the  progress  of  the  arts  like  dogs 
at  a  fair.  The  parlour  oracle  was  a  com 
mon  character  in  Roman  society,  as  one  may 
see  in  Horace.  So  is  the  man  that  knows 
the  last  joke  or  the  last  news.  It  has  always 
been  a  game  in  Europe  to  surprise  people  in 
the  drawing-room,  to  give  the  quip,  to  show 
oneself  to  be  an  c  our  ant,  to  take  the  trick 
in  conversation,— and,  above  all,  to  shun 
crudity.  This  game  of  shunning  crudity  is 
to-day  a  living  part  of  the  Roman  Empire 
which  shines  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  every 
European  capital,  and  which,  by  the  way, 
anyone  can  learn  to  play  in  the  course  of 
two  weeks.  It  is  a  shallow,  foolish  game — 
a  bore  of  a  game;  but  the  bon-ton  has  al 
ways  played  it,  and  always  will.  Men  of 
real  importance  who  move  in  the  beau  monde 
play  it  out  of  habit,  and  a  whole  world  of 
insignificant  people  play  it  because  it  is  their 
religion. 

This  drawing-room  world  of  social  and 
aesthetic  chatter  draws  such  vitality  as  it  has 
from  the  deep  currents  of  national  life  that 
flow  about  it  and  over  it.  It  is  a  fringe  of 
those  real  intellectual  worlds  which  lie  in 
visible  in  the  great  peoples  of  Europe.  It  is 
a  sort  of  servants*  dining-hall,  which  implies 
the  existence  of  masters  and  of  royal  folk 

1:307] 


GREEK  GENIUS 

somewhere  else.  Tolstoi  shows  this  chatter 
world  to  us  in  one  of  its  aspects,  Thackeray 
in  another,  de  Goncourt  in  another;  and  all 
of  the  moralists  who  have  described  it  make 
you  feel  that  this  tavern  of  criticism  and 
bibeloterie  is  a  little  wart  or  excrescence 
which  grows  on  the  body  of  Art.  It  is  a 
parasite — perhaps  a  necessary  parasite — 
which  all  healthy  art  supports  without  evil 
consequences. 

Now  the  Inner  Templar  from  America 
gets  into  this  tavern  of  criticism  and  thinks 
he  is  seeing  life.  He  finds  (at  first  almost  to 
his  surprise)  that  he  is  holding  up  his  end 
with  the  rest;  no  one  resents  him;  he  is  en 
couraged  ;  no  one  knows  that  he  is  different 
from  the  others;  he  does  not  know  it  him 
self.  But  the  truth  is  that,  unlike  the  others, 
he  has  no  home,  but  must  sit  up  all  night 
when  the  rest  have  gone  to  their  families. 
He  has  no  customs,  no  habits,  no  uncon 
scious  support  from  a  world  of  his  own. 
The  things  he  eats  are  not  his.  His  very 
toothpick  is  of  a  foreign  model,  and  he 
speaks  to  his  valet  in  French.  After  he  has 
talked  his  proper  chatter  about  Art,  he  may 
go  to  a  hired  room  to  work  over  Art. 


C3083 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 


THE  CREATIVE  WORK  OF  ALIENS 

A  MAN  who  writes  is  like  a  spider  who 
draws  a  web  out  of  his  stomach :  the  thread 
of  his  own  life  is  revealed  in  the  process. 
Art  is  the  most  personal  matter  in  the 
world;  and  nevertheless  the  artist  is — as  we 
shall  see  in  a  moment — a  mere  embryo  en 
closed  in  society  as  the  frog's  egg  is  held  in 
its  place  on  the  surface  of  a  pond, — pro 
tected,  fed,  and  controlled  by  those  vital 
forces  with  which  it  is  most  immediately  in 
contact. 

As  we  all  know,  it  is  the  early  years  of  life 
that  most  deeply  impress  all  men,  and  most 
seriously  influence  the  poet  and  the  novelist. 
An  artist  is  forever  telling  about  his  earliest 
impressions;  and  the  whole  power  of  his 
art,  which  increases  with  age  and  practice, 
is  put  to  illustrating  the  thoughts  and  pas 
sions  of  his  earliest  years. 

Let  us  now  recall  the  problems  which  nor 
mally  occupy  the  minds  of  Americans  who 
reside  abroad.  And  note  here  that  we  are 
drifting  towards  the  universal  in  these 
speculations,  which  concern  themselves  as 


GREEK  GENIUS 

mucH  with  London  as  with  Paris.  The 
dear  old  maids  from  Baltimore,  New  York, 
and  Boston  who  founded  the  American  Col 
onies  in  Europe,— the  Forty-niners,— were 
always  interested  in  cheap  pensions.  You 
paid  six  francs  at  one  place,  but  they  would 
not  black  the  shoes  there ;  the  coffee  was  best 
at  No.  47,  but  you  have  quarrelled  with  No. 
47  and  regretted  having  done  so.  In  the 
course  of  time,  when  Art,  and  the  self-con 
sciousness  of  Art,  began  to  creep  into  the 
American  Colonies  in  Europe,  this  Art  was 
coloured  by  the  triviality  of  the  life.  The 
Art  dealt  with  things  that  might  be  seen  by  a 
fly,  stale  things,  spots  and  externals,  the 
soul-problems  of  the  lodging-hunter  and  of 
the  tuft-hunter.  There  was  no  vigour,  no 
passion,  no  big  interest  in  this  life,  or  in  the 
reflection  of  this  life  in  its  works  of  art. 

It  is  not  merely  that  the  literary  members 
of  these  colonies  write  about  unimportant 
things.  It  is  that  all  these  colonists  have 
nothing  important  to  think  about,  and  hence, 
when  they  write,  they  write  chiffons.  Their 
bards  sing,  not  of  arms  and  the  man,  but  of 
petty  miseries,  pimples  on  the  face  of  so 
ciety,  mean  ambitions,  empty  hearts.  The 
little  blights  and  lichens  of  social  life  are  put 
under  a  microscope  and  enlarged  into 

[3103 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

hideous  ugliness.  And  all  this  epidermic 
school  of  letters  (which,  by  the  way,  is  a 
peculiarly  American  product;  no  one  else 
ever  wrote  in  this  manner  before)  is  con 
ducted  with  appalling  seriousness  and  in 
pretended  imitation  of  Balzac,  and  Flaubert, 
and  I  know  not  of  whom. 

Here,  then,  comes  the  revelation  of  the 
great  gulf  that  lies  between  the  Inner  Tem 
ple  and  any  normal  intellectual  life:  the 
Inner  Temple  has  no  outer  temple.  It  is  a 
core  without  an  apple.  Your  American 
novelist  in  London  or  Paris  is  shut  into  his 
studio  with  his  dreams,— and  he  dreams  of 
Americans  abroad.  And  when  he  runs  short 
of  Americans  abroad  he  is  obliged  to  return 
to  1872  and  to  give  pictures  of  Kentucky 
before  the  war.  He  cannot  throb  with  the 
healthy  emotionalism  of  European  life;  nor 
can  he  draw  upon  the  contemporary  life  of 
his  own  people.  His  relation  towards  his 
own  people  has  become  hostile  and  queru 
lous.  His  brain  is  starving  for  support  from 
his  fellow-men. 

The  great  djinn  who  does  the  work  for 
the  artist,  the  slave  who  draws  the  water  for 
the  hero  while  he  sleeps,  who  mows  the  ten 
acres  of  corn  in  a  night, — this  mysterious 
friend  is  the  Unconscious.  And  this  Uncon- 


GREEK  GENIUS 

scions  is  somehow  a  thing  which  other  peo 
ple  share.  It  is  the  block  out  of  which  we 
are  hewn,  and  the  pit  out  of  which  we  are 
digged.  The  Unconscious  is  the  great  um 
bilical  cord  that  holds  a  man  in  touch  with 
the  universe  and  permits  the  power  of  the 
universe  to  reverberate  through  him.  How 
explain  this  phenomenon?  How  make  a 
man  believe  in  the  importance  of  a  force 
which  must  in  its  very  essence  always  remain 
unconscious  ? 

These  floating  Americans,  whose  cultiva 
tion  represents  the  wart  without  the  body, 
have  detached  themselves  from  the  great 
dynamo  of  life.  If  one  could  see  what  was 
happening  in  the  souls  of  these  people,  one 
would  long  to  cut  them  down  like  suicides. 
What  the  reasons  may  be  for  this  loss  of 
power  in  expatriated  persons  we  do  not 
know.  Apparently  nature  speaks  only 
through  a  crowd.  There  must  be  a  great 
many  individuals  who  all  feel  alike  before 
any  one  of  them  can  say  a  word  that  is  true. 
There  is  ingenuousness  at  the  bottom  of  all 
power;  a  real  belief  that  your  way  of  think 
ing  must  prevail,  because  you  know  that 
everyone  at  bottom  is  like  yourself,— this 
belief  is  what  makes  your  words  count. 

Consider  Walter  Scott's  way  of  writing, 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

or  Napoleon's  way  of  commanding.  Con 
sider,  a  Frenchman's  way  of  driving  in  a 
nail,  or  an  Italian's  way  of  eating  macaroni. 
Consider  the  air  with  which  an  American 
rings  a  door-bell  and  then  stands  noncha 
lantly  on  the  door-step,  waiting  for  the  door 
to  be  opened.  There  is  a  whole-hearted  and 
headlong  manner  of  life  which  betrays  itself 
in  all  these  activities,  and  which  makes  us 
see  and  feel  that  the  thing  in  hand  is  im 
portant. 

There  are  certain  flowers  from  whose  root 
a  long  filament  goes  out,  a  hairy  process 
which  is  called  a  biotic  root.  This  biotic 
root  is  an  insignificant,  superfluous-looking 
string,  and  often  is  accidentally  destroyed 
while  the  flowers  are  being  transplanted; 
but  when  this  superfluous-looking  root  is  cut 
the  plant  dies.  Now  the  quality  which  the 
expatriated  American  loses  is  somehow  due 
to  the  loss  of  his  biotic  root;  but  to  say  just 
what  the  thing  is  or  does,  whether  in  horti 
culture  or  in  a  spiritual  sense,  is  beyond  our 
power. 


GREEK  GENIUS 

VI 

THE  POOR  INDIAN 

THE  terrible  thing  about  Nature  is  that  she" 
operates  but  never  explains.  Nature  lets  a 
man  die  for  lack  of  oxygen,  but  she  never 
says  to  him :  "What  you  need,  my  dear  fel 
low,  is  oxygen."  The  scientist  and  his  labor 
atory  are  required  to  find  the  labels  for  the 
poisons  of  the  world.  We  see  certain  evil 
symptoms,  certain  weaknesses  and  faint- 
nesses  of  nature,  deficiencies  of  energy  and 
dead  spots ;  but  we  can  never  be  sure  that  we 
have  properly  accounted  for  them.  If  there 
is  any  truth  in  my  diagnosis  of  the  heart  and 
brain  troubles  which  attack  Americans  re 
siding  in  Europe,  then  we  must  look  a  long 
way  back  for  the  causes.  We  must  go  back 
to  Columbus'  time,  and  perceive  that  the 
rush  of  Europeans  to  America  and  their 
segregation  for  a  few  centuries  on  a  new 
soil  made  them  peculiarly  sensitive  to  certain 
home  microbes,  certain  drawing-room  dis 
eases  of  Europe,  from  which  their  frontier 
life  had  been  peculiarly  free.  When  the 
Americans  return  to  Europe  the  pleasures 
of  the  intellect  become  to  them  a  danger, 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

because  they  roll  themselves  in  those  pleas 
ures  as  a  cat  rolls  in  valerian.  The  cult  of 
cultivation,  which  is  merely  a  becoming  sort 
of  fashionable  cough  to  thousands  of  Eu 
ropeans,  runs  straight  into  scarlet  fever  and 
typhoid  with  the  American  visitors.  The 
pose  of  refinement,  the  dread  of  crudity,  the 
love  of  bibelots,  become,  as  it  were,  mortal 
sins  to  the  long-lost  American. 

We  must  note  one  very  interesting  fact : 
the  American  who  is  in  Europe  selling 
steam-boilers  or  distributing  Belgian  relief, 
or  even  on  some  business  connected  with  art 
or  literature,  does  not  show  signs  of  this 
fussy  sickness.  He  does  his  business  and 
goes  home.  It  is  the  man  who  stays  in 
Europe  in  search  of  sensation  that  catches 
the  disease. 

The  disease  in  all  its  forms  is  Nature's 
punishment  for  the  vice  of  seeking  sensa 
tion.  The  dilettantes  of  ancient  Rome,  who 
suffered  from  it,  were  people  who  wanted 
to  draw  a  little  more  pleasure  out  of  life 
than  health  would  permit.  "We  are  all  of 
us  too  clever!"  says  Montaigne;  "and  in 
order  to  grow  wise  we  must  become  dull." 
Now  Americans  have  not  enough  reserve 
power  to  indulge  in  any  cleverness  at  all,  with 
impunity.  They  exhibit  the  rarest  variety 

C3I53 


GREEK  GENIUS 

of  the  disease  of  cleverness  which  has  ever 
been  known,  because  they  have  lived  in  the 
wilderness  till  they  have  lost  the  power  to 
take  sophistication  lightly.  Sophistication 
is  poison  to  them ;  they  die  of  it,  as  red  In 
dians  die  of  whiskey.. 

Our  only  road  to  strength  in  America  lies 
through  the  building  up  of  the  arts  and 
sciences  in  America,  and  in  an  increase  in 
the  general  complexity  of  our  social  and  in 
tellectual  life.  Your  intelligent  American 
will  stand  more  chance  of  becoming  a  sig 
nificant  intelligence  if  he  babbles  in  the  pur 
lieus  of  Hoboken  than  if  he  hobnobs  with 
the  Sorbonne.  He  will  then  be  able  to  re 
tain  his  own  point  of  view  on  entering 
Europe,  and  will  not  drop  it  in  the  ante 
chamber  of  the  first  European  house  he 
enters.  When  he  goes  to  Europe  he  will  go 
as  the  business  man  does,  bringing  his  own 
thoughts,  his  own  wares,  his  own  aims  and 
habits  with  him  and  feeling  no  false  shame 
as  to  his  crudity.  He  will  not  be  so  im 
pressed  with  the  importance  of  small  things, 
whether  they  be  visiting-cards  or  the  tittle- 
tattle  of  the  intellectual  classes,  as  he  is  at 
present.  He  will,  in  fact,  have  a  self-re 
specting  and  natural  relation,  instead  of  a 


LA  VIE  PARISIENNE 

simian  and  nervous  relation,  towards  the 
things  of  the  mind  in  the  Old  World. 

After  all,  the  typical  American  manufac 
turer  who  comes  abroad  with  his  foolish 
wife  and  daughters  and  is  held  up  to  ridi 
cule  in  the  novels  of  the  Anglo-  and  Franco- 
American  literatures  (this  school  of  fiction 
seems  to  have  only  one  theme)  is  a  step 
nearer  to  true  cultivation  than  the  rest  of 
the  characters  in  the  books, — a  step  nearer 
than  the  authors  who  write  them;  for  this 
manufacturer  is  a  part  of  a  continent  and 
of  a  tradition,  a  part  of  an  unconscious 
force.  The  other  personages  are  dried 
leaves. 


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